


Music Speaks

by FlashThroughLight, mekare



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Music, Angst, Bruce Wayne is Not Batman, Bruce Wayne is a Good Dad, Character Study, Fluff, Gen, Musical Instruments, but not really a dad but he might as well be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-29 00:56:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 35,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12619480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlashThroughLight/pseuds/FlashThroughLight, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mekare/pseuds/mekare
Summary: Music had always been in his family. Ever since Bruce could remember, it was always there. Until the music is lost when his parents are killed. Bruce loses his way, until he finds inspiration and becomes a music teacher to an assortment of students.





	1. Bruce

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the DCU Bang and with beautiful art embedded by Mekare! You can view the art in the fic, or go to Mekare's Dreamwidth [here](https://mekare.dreamwidth.org/70914.html/)

Music had always been in his family. Ever since Bruce could remember it was always there in some way, shape or form.

As a young woman his mother found a love in music and practiced endlessly on various different instruments. Bruce knew that his mother was able to play the piano and the violin, but her favorite instrument to play, by far, was the harp.

When he was young his mother would often play the harp for him when he was sick or couldn’t fall asleep. She would sing gentle songs as well as tell stories about the harp. It had been his great-grandmother’s who had played in one of the most prestigious orchestras in the country. His great-grandmother, in turn, had tried taught his grandfather, but he hadn’t shown any interest in the instrument at all.

It was only when his mother had been born that the harp got used again. His great-grandmother’s hands had become too shaky to play by then, but she’d taught his mother in as much as she could. Even when his great-grandmother passed away, his mother went to a different teacher and kept learning.

The harp itself was a masterpiece. There was some lineage and it was very fancy and had been restored quite a few times, but those exact memories were all lost to Bruce now.

The only things that he could remember were the beautiful notes ringing through the air and the soft and gentle voice of his mother as she sang. Once she promised him that she would teach him how to play it after he finished learning how to play the piano, but that time never came.

She and her gentle voice and soft tunes had died before that could ever come to fruition.

Both of his parents gone in what seemed like a split second, but also felt like forever at the hands of a man with a gun in an alleyway.

Bruce couldn’t stand to play the piano anymore after that, let alone even look at the harp which his mother had cherished so. Instead he had Alfred cover all the instruments up and lock them away in some far off room where he didn’t have to look at them anymore.  
  


Gone was the music from Bruce’s life, even as he tried to keep on living. There was a large gap inside of him that he didn’t understand and didn’t know how to fill. Instead he attempted to focus on his studies. Trying to be a model student and, later, a university student. That had fallen apart as well, as everything in his life seemed to do.

Bruce left Gotham. He left the United States and decided to go off and travel without so much as a word to anyone. Ever since his parents had died there had been no meaning in his life. Nothing to really keep him going. No goal whatsoever. He knew his legacy; knew that Wayne Enterprises was waiting for him to step up and fill in the space that his father had left behind. Yet Bruce couldn’t even bring himself to conjure up that image. Walking around in a business suit and being at the head of a Fortune 500 company.

Whenever he closed his eyes and tried to think about what he wanted in life there was nothing but a blank, dark slate. Sometimes he imagined that he could hear music notes in the background, but they were so faint that he often played them off as noises from his surroundings. Even when he was all alone in the middle of nowhere.

For years Bruce roamed around the world. He spent a year in South America and six months in Oceania and another year and a half in Asia. Bruce wouldn’t really call what he was doing soul searching, but he knew that it was a thing that people often did.

It was one day that Bruce was walking down the main street of a small village in the Tyrol region of Austria that he heard a sound that made him pause.

Music.

Not just any music, however, because Bruce had heard a lot of music since he started his travels. This music specifically was being produced by a harp. Even though Bruce had encountered many different kind of harps over the past few years, this was one that he hadn’t heard in a long time. Not since his mother had died.

This was coming from a concert harp. The sounds weren’t as clear as they could be, but there was no mistaking it.

Bruce didn’t even realize that he closed his eyes until the music stopped. He opened his eyes again and waited until the gentle sounds started up again. It must have been upwards to ten minutes that he was just standing in the middle of the road with confused villagers staring at him. What a sight he must have been. A strange tourist not moving. Not that Bruce cared. All he wanted was to hear the harp again.

As soon as the notes started up again Bruce started moving. Trying to navigate through the small streets that led to picturesque houses and backdrops of the Eastern Alps. None of that mattered though.

What mattered was that Bruce had finally found the source of the music. It was a very small house. One so narrow that he almost wasn’t sure how people could live in a place like this. There was a sign hanging above the door that read Musikschule. Music school in German. He hesitated for a moment, reaching out to push the door open, but not really being able to bring himself to.

At some point the harp stopped playing and the door swung open. A young woman just about ran into him until she noticed that he was blocking the doorway. She jumped, placing a hand on her chest. “Mein Gott!” She stepped back a moment to compose herself before she looked him over and frowned. “Tourist. Gottverdammt noch mal.” She huffed and grabbed a bag, pulling it close to her as she shouldered past him to leave.

He stared at her back, watching her leave before he turned to the doorway again. It was still propped open. Bruce must have instinctively reached out to keep it from slamming closed.

“Klara? Was machst du denn?” Another woman came around the corner. What must have been white blonde hair at one point had started to turn gray, but instead of the colour making her look old, it gave her a sophisticated look. It was braided on the side and pinned back into a bun. She was wearing a dark blue dress with an apron covered in brightly covered flowers over it. Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw Bruce standing at the door. “Oh, wer sind Sie?”

His German was sloppy at best, but Bruce could make out what she was saying and he had an idea of how to respond. “Mein Name ist Bruce.”

“Ach so. Entschuldigung, ich spreche kein Englisch.” His accent and the way he looked must have given away that he was a tourist. He wasn’t very well practiced in German, but Bruce could at least have a bit of a conversation.

“Alles is gut…” He was trying to form the words in his head. “Machst ich inkommen?”

The woman smiled and chuckled, no doubt because his German was so bad. “Ja, du kannst jetzt reinkommen. Bitte nennen Sie mich Verena.”

Right. Those were the words that he had been looking for. Bruce stepped inside, politely taking his shoes off and placing his travel backpack on a small bench by the door. He looked up to see that the woman – Verena – had already gone back through the door that she’d come out of. He watched his step because he was afraid that his shoulders would snag on something. The house had looked small on the outside, but the inside almost felt suffocating.

Bruce made it into the other room without incident and knew that this must be the main room with how big and open it was. This was where the lessons were because the room was filled with various different instruments. A grand piano was the first thing that stood out to him. The black had stopped gleaming in some places, but it looked like it was loved. Next to it on a stand was a cello, looking similarly well used and loved. Bruce scanned the room and took note of the other instruments. There was a violin, a concert flute, and in the back close to a wide set of open windows was the harp that he had heard.

“Spielen Sie auch?” Verena asked, moving to a plush chair in the corner of the room. There were music scores on a small table next to her. Possibly the ones that she and the young woman had been working on before he’d arrived.

“Nicht mehr.” Bruce said with a shake of his head, even as he walked over to the piano and traced his fingers over the gold lettering on the face of the instrument.

“Wie lange?”

“Sehr lang.” Bruce told her.

She hummed under her breath, waving her hand at the plush chair. “Bitte setzen Sie sich. Ich habe Kaffee und Strudel.”

Before Bruce could object she was already leaving the room, presumably to grab coffee and the pastry she had mentioned. He sighed and looked around the room again. What was he even doing here? None of this had been a part of his life for the better part of a decade. For a moment he thought of leaving before she came back, but that would be rude. His parents taught him better than that.

Instead of taking a seat in the chair, Bruce decided to sit down on the bench in front of the piano. At first he sat with his back facing the instrument, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that. He kept peering over his shoulder and looking at the ivory keys. With a soft sigh he turned around to face the piano. It had been a long time since Bruce had done this, but he sort of remembered a few things.

At first he placed his fingertips on the keys and that just felt wrong. He sat up straight, loosening up his shoulders and shifting to sit on the front half of the bench. Bruce arched his fingers and tried to remember the movements that had been taught to him. At first he simply started moving his fingers over the keys in the order of a song that he couldn’t remember the name of. Without meaning to Bruce pushed down on one of the keys and a C note rang through the room.

That hadn’t been his intention and Bruce hesitated, looking over his shoulder to see if Verena was coming back to see what he was doing to her piano. After a minute there was nothing and Bruce turned back to the keys. He started pushing down on them. The notes that he was playing were familiar, but they were a lot slower than the song probably was. Even though it sounded off tone at times Bruce kept playing, trying to let his muscle memory speak for him.

He was so concentrated on the piano that he hadn’t even noticed that he wasn’t alone anymore until he smelled coffee. Bruce immediately stopped playing and turned around to see that the woman had come back into the room and settled into the chair. She was holding a white cup and saucer trimmed with gold and had a smile on her face.

“Erinnern Sie sich?” She asked before she lifted the cup and took a sip of her coffee.

Bruce quickly shook his head. “Nein… I don’t think so.” He trailed off.

“Wir trinken unseren Kaffee und dann spielen wir.” She pointed at the other cup and saucer that she placed on the small table next to her chair.

Bruce got up and took the coffee. There was a sugar basin and a small milk jug as well, but he preferred his coffee black. “Danke,” he said before he sat down on the piano bench again and sipped at his coffee. It was brewed a little lighter than he preferred, but he wasn’t about to complain.

The one thing that he was worrying about was what she had said. Bruce had let himself get carried away. He shouldn’t have been playing the piano at all and he certainly didn’t want to play more. It had been foolish of him to ask to come inside and then stay. He needed to be on his way. There were things that he had to do and people that he had to meet. For once he had a timeline and he was planning on sticking to it.

Verena finished her coffee before him and she got up, moving to a filing cabinet and opening one of the drawers to rifle through the contents. Even from his position Bruce could see that it was filled with folders of sheet music. Just how many did she have? Verena pulled out a worn folder and walked over to the piano, placing it on the lid and pulling out the first sheet. He took a look at the page and saw that it was a beginner’s sheet meant to teach the keys and position.

“Verena, I’m sorry. I’m not going to play more.” Bruce sputtered as she took the empty coffee cup from him and set it aside.

She didn’t pay him any mind. Perhaps because she didn’t know English, or even because she wasn’t going to put up with any of his protestations. “Lassen Sie es mich sehen.” Verena sat down next to him and he scooted over to give her more space. She had been slouching a little before, but as soon as she sat down she straightened her back and sat up properly. Bruce was just staring at her as she waited for him to do something. Eventually Verena tutted under her breath and looked right back at him. “Geh mal.”

Bruce hesitated, but he copied her stance and placed his fingers on the keys. Verena hummed under her breath and reached out to adjust his hands. When she was satisfied with the way he was holding himself she pulled back again.

Bruce bit back a sigh. Why was he letting her do this? It was nonsensical, yet he couldn’t quite bring himself to get up and walk away. She was waiting so patiently for him even though she had no obligations towards him at all. It was strange and it reminded him of something. Bruce couldn’t recall exactly what, but it made him turn to look at the sheet music and he very slowly started playing as he went through the steps of recalling the order of the keys.

He was a lot clunkier than he expected, but Bruce supposed that’s what happened when you stopped playing for over a decade. Verena didn’t seem perturbed at all. She just sat silently and kept adjusting his posture and his fingers without saying anything. Soon she started putting up other sheets and Bruce just looked at them and started playing. The more that he played, the smoother that it got. It was like all of the lessons that he had taken were slowly coming back to him.

Bruce didn’t even realize how long they had been playing until he noticed that it was getting harder to read the notes on the page. He stopped and saw that it was starting to get dark. It had barely been noon when he’d heard the harp playing in the streets. How was it so late already?

Verena didn’t seem to notice until he stopped playing either. She spoke in such rapid fast German that he wasn’t able to keep track of what she said, but she got up and turned on the light. The hand that was waved at him in a motion that he recognized was that he was to keep playing. Verena waited for him to nod before she left the room.

It felt a little awkward to be sitting alone. Bruce’s side suddenly felt cold now that Verena was gone. He wondered what she was doing, but turned back to the piano again. It was a lot easier to read the sheet music now that the light was on. He stood up, stretching his legs for a moment, and looked at the other sheets in the folder. There seemed to be an order to them, so he made sure to flip them over to keep them neat and tidy. Bruce came across a song that he remembered playing when he was younger and decided that he was going to play it.

He set it up and looked at the title. Bach’s ‘Prelude to the Well Tempered Clavichord.’

Bruce took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. It was a lot easier to get in the mindset of playing again now that he’d been playing for hours. He opened his eyes and started the first notes of the song, the others soon followed after. He knew that he wasn’t playing it in the exact right tempo, but he was playing it and that’s what mattered.

Time went by easily after that. It was just him, the sheet music and the piano. The notes ringing through the room. Bruce played the last few notes and smiled to himself. That had felt very good.

He jolted when someone started clapping and he turned around with wide eyes to see Verena standing at the doorway with a smile on her face. “Bravo! Sehr gut.”

It had been a long time since Bruce had blushed, but he felt the telltale signs of it as his cheeks heated up. He’d gotten so immersed in the music that he hadn’t even thought of Verena.

“Komm. Das Essen ist fertig.” Verena beckoned him to follow her.

Bruce pulled away from the piano and got up, following her into the other room, which was a small kitchen. It was a simple and utilitarian kitchen, like many of the European kitchens that he had seen, and the only furniture in it was a wall mounted table that Verena was propping up and two small chairs.

She pointed at one of the chairs as she brought over a set of plates. It looked dumplings sitting in broth, but what kind Bruce did not know. Verena sat down next to him again, smoothing down her apron before she clasped her hands together. It took a moment for Bruce to realize that she was going to pray and he politely clasped his hands together as well.

“Komm, Herr Jesus, sei unser Gast und segne, was du uns bescheret hast. Amen,” Verena said before she lifted her head and reached out to grab a fork.

Bruce, not used to praying before meals, was late in realizing that she had finished praying and he was late in eating. Verena had already started when he grabbed a fork.

He used the fork to cut the dumping in half. It seemed to be a bread filled with small pieces of meat and herbs. From the smell of it, Bruce was pretty sure that it was bacon. He sectioned the dumpling into smaller pieces and let them soak in the broth for a moment before he ate. It was very good and very hearty. Bruce could already tell that the three dumplings that were on his plate were going to fill him up quite nicely.

He was going to have to compensate Verena for her hospitality. She’d sat down and made him play piano and had served him food and coffee. Bruce didn’t have much in the way of currency right now, but he was sure that he could give her what he had and perhaps do a favor for her as well. It was only fair that he repay her kindness as much as he could.

Bruce finished before Verena did and he sat back, waiting for her to finish as well. When she did he got up and started collecting the plates.

“Bruce, ich kann…”

“Nein. I’ll clean up as thank you.” Bruce had washed dishes with Alfred before so it wasn’t like he didn’t know what he was doing. Luckily it seemed that Verena understood that he wasn’t going to take no for an answer and she just smiled at him instead of objecting again. Bruce gathered up all of the dishes and went to the sink. Only a single small one that had a sponge on the edge and a nearly empty dish soap bottle. He started cleaning up, even taking the cups of coffee that Verena brought in from the main room. It was only when everything was dried off that he let Verena help again, since Bruce didn’t know where any of the dishes went.

When all was said and done they sat down at the table again and drank more coffee along with the apple strudel for desert.

It was a little awkward when they finished. It was fully dark by now and Bruce had actually had plans to leave the town and spend the night out in the hills with the small tent that he carried along with him. Now that it was dark, however, he didn’t quite know how he felt about navigating an unknown area.

Verena set their plates into the sink and waved Bruce off when he tried to clean up again. “Kommen Sie mit mir.”

Bruce dutifully followed after her as she went back to the hall. For a moment he thought that she was going to dismiss him or kick him out, but instead she tried to pick up his backpack for him. He hurried forward, grabbing the backpack before she could hurt herself and Verena smiled at him before beckoning to follow her up the stairs.

After a moment of hesitation he followed her up the narrow stairs, hunching his shoulders a bit when he felt like they’d bump against the walls. Verena steadily made her way up the stairs and opened up a door. Bruce peered inside and saw that it was a bedroom, only big enough to hold a single bed and a small dresser. “Du kannst hier übernachten und hier ist das Badezimmer.” Verena opened a door right next to the room and he saw that it was a bathroom.

Suddenly Bruce realized what she was trying to say to him and he immediately started shaking his head, but Verena just tutted and patted his chest before trying to herd him into the bedroom.

For a split second Bruce thought about pulling away from her and leaving the house. Somehow he couldn’t bring himself to actually do that though. Instead he deflated and walked into the bedroom. When he turned to look over his shoulder Verena was smiling at him and she waved before she closed the door.

Bruce really didn’t know what was going on. How had him strolling along a street and hearing a harp playing in the distance lead to this? If he sat down and just recounted the story out loud, Bruce was sure that it was going to sound insane. There was no way that anyone would really believe him if he told them about it.

Except maybe Alfred.

He shook his head to rid himself of his warring thoughts. Bruce could stay the night. There was no harm in that.  


* * *

 

Except Bruce didn’t just stay the night. He ended up staying enough nights that he stopped keeping track.

That first morning after breakfast he and Verena had sat down in front of the piano again and played for a few hours before she stopped him and asked him if he wanted to stay.

Bruce’s first instinct was to say no, but he didn’t. Nothing came out of his mouth at all. He thought about all the travelling that he had been doing and the people that he’d met. A distinguished man in green and golden robes, and his daughter. Fleeting kisses and promises of reuniting. He’d had every intention of meeting up with them again like he had said that he would.

But something had changed.

It had taken Bruce deep into the night to figure out what that change had been. Throughout the day with Verena he’d felt like he was experiencing something familiar and now he finally knew what it was.

Verena reminded him of his mother.

She might be older than Martha Wayne would be right now, but it still felt the same. The solid warmth next to him on the piano bench and the infinite patience and unwavering belief that he could accomplish what he was setting out to do.

Bruce had relented and decided to stay.

Funny how it was a harp that had led him here.

He made sure to pull his weight as much as he could. Bruce cleaned up around the house and did all the heavy lifting that Verena needed. He did the groceries, swept the front room, pulled weeds out from between the flowers next to the front porch, and many other things. It was a big difference from the kinds of things that he had been doing during his travels so far. The only time he’d done work like this was when he’d stay with monks in Tibet.

It was good work and it kept him busy.

Verena had lessons almost every day. Young children, teenagers, young adults. The first time he saw the young woman from the first day again he’d come downstairs after a shower when he heard the harp playing. The young woman – Klara as he came to know her – had narrowed her eyes at him at first, but looked away when Verena prompted her to start playing.

Klara brushed passed him when her lesson was over with a huff, much like the first time.

Verena came over to him, placing her hand on his arm and asking him if he wanted to play the harp as well.

Bruce gulped and quickly shook his head. He was sticking with the piano for now.

Verena dropped the topic after he’d refused the first time, never asking outright again, but Bruce caught her gaze a few times as she looked over at the harp when they were in the main room together. Every single time he let his eyes fall away.

Soon he became closely acquainted with the other people who were getting lessons from Verena. There were twin boys who were learning to play the cello and the violin, a teenaged girl who played the piano, a young man on the cusp of adulthood who came in and just played the trumpet and a young woman who came in with her own concert flute. Sometimes she would play by herself and sometimes Verena would pick up her own concert flute and play along with her. However, it was only Klara that played the harp.

Sometimes Bruce would sit in on the lessons and simply watch and listen. Other times he sat on the piano as Verena made him accompany others. Eventually he started getting lessons as well. His German was incrementally getting better. It certainly helped that a lot of the musical terms that Verena used were ones that Bruce recognized as well.

Verena asked him if he wanted to learn any of the other instruments, but Bruce refused. He was content with watching the lessons and only learning the basics of each instrument. If there was an instrument that he would be most interested it, it was the concert flute. Verena, as observant as she was, easily caught onto his interested. She mostly played herself and then proceeded to show him what she was doing and explained it to him, an insightful lesson. 

On days that Verena was feeling tired Bruce would take over her lessons sometimes. Most of the time he could only give tips and try to help as much as he could for everyone except Klara and the harp.

He’d mostly just leave her alone whenever she was around. Not that it really made much of a difference because the music she would play was always following him around.

Bruce set down a glass of water for Klara and was about to leave when she called out. “Come here.” Her English was heavily accented, but it was the first English that he’d heard in so many.

He looked around and pointed at himself in confusion, to which Klara just sighed. “Yes, you. Come here.” Bruce pulled up one of the stools. “You look like I hurt you when I play. Why?” She asked him.

“You don’t hurt me when you play.” Bruce muttered.

“I am not blind. I see you.”

For all that Klara had seemed disinterested in him, apparently she still kept an eye on him. Not that he could blame her. She was probably just looking out for Verena. It was a little strange, to take in a foreign stranger on a whim.

“You look at this all the time. Why?” She pointed at the harp and it was years of discipline that kept Bruce from wincing in response. “You tell me. Please.” Klara added, almost as an afterthought.

Bruce considered it for a moment. What would either of them gain from him telling her his feelings about the harp? She didn’t like him and Bruce didn’t really like talking to people that much. But she just kept looking at him with those harsh brown eyes of hers and he ran a hand through his hair. “My mother used to play.”

“Used to?” Klara asked.

“Yes. She died when I was eight,” Bruce told her and he saw that moment in which she realized what he’d said and held up a hand. “It’s okay. I’ve learned to live with it.”

Klara’s jaw clenched and Bruce could see the conflict in her eyes. The regret was obviously still there, but that fire that she had in her was still burning strongly. “No. You do not live with it.”

“Excuse me?”

“You are sad when you say this, but you look…kaput.” She trailed off, obviously not finding the word that she was looking for. Klara’s fingers trailed over the strings in a simple chord and Bruce instinctively turned away from it. “You see! You do hurt.”

Bruce didn’t want to talk about this anymore. He stood up without fanfare and turned to leave the room.

In response Klara just starting playing the harp again, but this time she started singing. Her voice was a lot higher than his mother’s was and she was singing in German, but ghosts were chasing Bruce as he slipped on his shoes and quickly fled the house.  


* * *

 

Klara glared at him more fiercely every time that they saw each other after that. Even when it was just in the village itself. However, instead of distrust, Bruce started seeing determination in her eyes. That was why he always made sure that he was far away from the house whenever she came over for her lessons.

Bruce wouldn’t necessarily say that he was scared of her. It was a little bit more complicated than that. It wasn’t Klara that he feared, but memories that he had been running away from for years. At night he often dreamed about his mother, but they were always hazy. Her face was always shrouded by mist and her voice sounded like it was underwater. Bruce didn’t really know if he could call them dreams. It was almost more like a nightmare. Especially when he woke up one morning and realized that he couldn’t remember what his mother sounded like anymore.

He’d stayed in his room and Verena – bless her – had simply nodded and brought food up to him that day.

It took several days for him to make his decision, but the next time that Klara came in for her lessons Bruce all but ambushed her at the door. “Let me partake in your lesson.”

“Mein Gott!” She jolted, placing her hand on her chest much like she had done the first time that they’d seen each other. Klara looked at him with wide eyes as if she was only seeing him for the first time before she started to relax. “I do not know partake.”

“We will learn together.” Bruce made it simpler for her to understand.

Klara, for what was worth, just kept staring at him like he was crazy, even as she inched past him to go into the main room. For a moment Bruce thought that he had been rejected, but when he joined her and Verena in the room he saw that another stool had been pulled up right next to the harp. Klara didn’t look at him as he sat down and spent the entire lesson showing him the proper way of playing.

That first lesson he didn’t touch the strings himself. Just couldn’t bring himself to. Not yet.

It was the sixth lesson that Bruce finally ran his fingers over the strings, a chill running through his body at the notes produced. That was him. He’d done that. Verena was taking a bathroom break and it was just him and Klara in the room. She was sitting aside, sipping some water, but she looked up when he kept running his fingers over the strings. First they were singular strings and a little while later Bruce lifted both of his hands and experimentally starting to pluck the strings.

He didn’t realize that he’d started crying until Verena entered into his view, holding out the handkerchief that she always kept in the front pocket of her apron.

“Danke,” Bruce quickly cleared his throat and took the handkerchief from her to wipe his tears away.

“Bitteschön.” Verena quickly said before she sat down in her chair again.

It took Bruce a few minutes to compose himself. For some reason he expected to feel ashamed for crying in front of the two women, but the only feeling that lingered was that there was a small weight off of his shoulders.

After that day things started progressing a lot faster. Klara came over during her spare time on days that Verena didn’t have any lessons and she sat down, taking Bruce through the steps of playing the harp. First teaching him how to tune the harp, then closely focusing on the way that he had to hold his hands and the proper way to pluck and eventually integrated the pedals as well.

Sometimes Klara sang along with the songs that he was learning to play and Bruce found that he was getting better at listening to them. It helped that the songs weren’t the same ones that his mother used to sing and that they were mostly in German instead of English.

It was actually quite nice to work together with Klara. Bruce got to know her a lot better and it seemed that she was starting to warm up to him as well.

Verena called them a magical duo.

She managed to convince the both of them to perform a duet for a festival that the village was having one day. Bruce on the piano and Klara on the harp.

He had never realized how beautiful the two instruments sounded together until they decided on a song and started rehearsing. They spent hours upon hours working together, working out every little intricacy and stayed up late the night before the performance to make sure that they were ready.

The performance itself was like no other. Bruce had only ever played in front of his parents and Alfred when he was younger, so having almost an entire village watching him was a little nerve wracking. Then he reminded himself that he had grown up in the spotlight. This wasn’t anything that he wasn’t used to. Klara gave him a hard clap on the back and a smile before their performance and it made him feel a lot better. Most of the jitters that he still had left him then, knowing how competent and self-assured his partner was.

Even when he sat down, feeling the energy that the people watching were giving off, he still felt calm. Bruce and Klara met eyes and smiled at each other before they started playing.

Afterwards Verena told them that it was the single most beautiful thing that she’d ever heard and he’d given the old woman a hug when she came over all teary eyed.

There were people congratulating Verena and Klara’s peers had cluttered around her when Bruce came to a sudden realization.

The gap inside of him that had been so prominent ever since his parents had died felt like it was starting to heal. It wasn’t filled up, and deep down Bruce knew that it would never be, but it was nothing like he’d ever felt before. There hasn’t been a moment in all his travels that he felt this way. So many years, so many, and so many people, but it was this that brought the slightest sense of healing.

That evening after a luxurious buffet in the village hall when they got back to the house, he turned to Verena before they separated for the night. “Verena, ich muss nach Hause gehen.”

“Das weiß ich.” She reached up and ran her hand over his cheek. “Viel Glück.”

When Bruce was on an airplane that would take him to London, and then home to Gotham he had a handkerchief in his pocket and a scrap of paper with an address and a phone number on it. This wouldn’t be the last time that he saw or spoke to Verena and Klara and the others.  


* * *

 

Bruce could tell by Alfred’s expression that the old butler hadn’t expected him to be coming home any time soon, much less show up and announce to him that he wanted to open up a private music studio.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me Alfred. I’m going to be a music teacher.”

Bruce already looked up the specifics while he was waiting for his layover in London. He would have to get a music degree and an education degree in order to be recognized by national organizations, but he couldn’t wait that long. It’d take years for him to study.

It was a good thing that private music teachers didn’t have to hold proper certification. Bruce figured that he could open up a studio and do his studies at the same time. It couldn’t be that hard.

“Do forgive me, sir, if I seem startled,” Alfred said.

Bruce just smiled at him. “I don’t blame you.” He shouldered his pack and was about to go upstairs to see if Alfred had done anything to his room since he’d been gone, but he stopped in his tracks and turned to hug the butler. Something Bruce couldn’t remember doing in a very long time. “I’m home.”

If Alfred was startled at all, he got over it quickly to hug Bruce back. “Welcome home, Bruce.”  


* * *

 

Amidst a flurry of press conferences and journalists following him around and board members of Wayne Enterprises welcoming him back, Bruce was able to buy a venue in Old Gotham that was to become his studio.

Some renovations had to be done and Bruce had to purchase instruments and have others restored, but he managed it.

After a few months the excitement about Gotham’s ‘prodigal son’ returning had died down. There were some rumors floating around and a lot of disapproval because of what he had decided to do, but Bruce brushed it all off. They could talk and disapprove all they wanted. All he knew was that he finally decided what he wanted to do with his life and no one else had say in it whatsoever.

The last piece that was put in was the harp.

Bruce decided that it would be a shame to keep it in the manor. With how busy he was going to be with studying and potentially teaching he thought that it would be much better to have it in the studio. It was the last touch.

He hadn’t seen it fully since he’d returned, only caught a glance when it had been taken away for reparations to make sure that it was still functional to play.

Now it made everything perfect.

In his mind it brought everything together.

At first he hadn’t known where to put it, but Bruce decided on keeping it in the foyer room close to the window front. That way everyone could see it and marvel at it while he could sit down sometimes and play, watching Gothamites walk by.

Bruce decided that he was going to vet the people that he wanted to teach.

Already there was a giant list of people jumping at the opportunity of working with Bruce Wayne or having their children work with Bruce Wayne, but he knew that a majority of them would only be doing it for the connection to his last name and not for the love of music.

He’d only teach people who really wanted to learn.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many thanks to my lovely artist Mekare for looking over my German for me! I tried to make sure that there was some explanation of the German within the story, but if you guys want it, I can add some translations.


	2. Dick and Jason

His first student was a young boy named Richard Grayson, aged ten.

When he was younger his parents used to be part of the circus, but a few years back there had been an accident which left Richard’s mother crippled and ultimately left the family unable to continue touring with the circus. They’d decided to stay in Gotham and now they were here, sitting with Bruce in his studio as he conducted an interview with them.

It’d been over six months since he’d opened the doors of his studio and Bruce must have held over a hundred interviews, but he hadn’t taken anyone in as his student yet.

“It’s just that we aren’t able to keep up with him anymore and his teachers suggested enrolling him in activities that will keep him busy and concentrated,” Mary Grayson said.

John nodded, his hand on top of hers as they spoke. “We tried getting him into sports, but that hasn’t really worked out.”

Bruce was listening to the both of them closely, had been since they had entered his studio and shook his hand, but he was keeping his eyes on Richard. He understood why it was so hard for all of them to adjust to city life. Especially Richard, who was constantly moving around and looking at everything that he could. He’d even done a handstand on one of the chairs before John had told him off.

How could it compare to being able to run around and do acrobatics all day to being cooped up in a place where no one shared your interests and life experiences? It was a tragedy what had happened to the Grayson family, but they were lucky. It could have been much worse.

If fate had wanted it to be so, there was a chance that Richard wouldn’t have parents at all anymore.

“Can I talk to him?” Bruce asked.

“Oh, of course.” Mary had already turned to see where her son had gone off to, but Bruce got up himself.

“I saw where he went. I’ll be back.” He wanted to talk to Richard alone, to see what he thought of all of this. Concentrating on learning an instrument wasn’t very physically draining, which was the kind of exercise that Richard probably needed.

Bruce walked in the direction that he’d last seen Richard in, trying to appear casual with his hands in his pockets as he strolled along. In the end it was Richard who gave himself away. Bruce heard the strumming of the guitar that he had in one of the rooms and then there was a clatter. There was some muttered noises and when Bruce turned the corner he saw Richard gingerly placing the guitar, which didn’t seem to have any damage, back on the stand.

“Do you like the guitar?” Bruce asked without preamble.

Richard jumped a foot in the air. Quite literally. From what Bruce had seen the boy was rowdy and would even dare to call him bouncy. “Mister Wayne! I mean, sir. Uh…” Bright blue eyes quickly flicked over to the guitar before the boy laughed nervously, holding his hands behind his back and taking a step away from the instrument. “It’s nice! Oh yeah, definitely a good looking guitar.”

Bruce ducked his head, attempting to hide the curling of his lips. “It is, isn’t it? I’ll admit that it’s brand new. Only been played once by me and that’s when I bought it.”

The tanned complexion on Richard’s face paled slightly and he turned his head away with a cough. “Oh really? That’s nice.”

“I have a lot of nice instruments.” Bruce said, walking over and looking over the guitar. He could see Richard shuffling nervously on the balls of his feet, leaning to the side like he was waiting for Bruce to find something wrong with the guitar. “Do you know why your parents brought you here?”

“Because my teachers and other parents complain that I’m a nuisance with too much energy.” Richard said and Bruce could hear just how pleased Richard was with that assessment.

“Tell me, why should I take you as my student?” Bruce continued asking.

Richard huffed and took another step back. Almost as if he was ready to run away if Bruce actually found something wrong with the guitar. “Honestly Mister Wayne? I have no idea. You’re kind of a celebrity from what I hear and I’m just that kid from the circus.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“I don’t know. Apparently it just is.” Richard seemed to relax a little more, pulling his eyes away from the guitar.

“Have you ever played an instrument before, Richard?” It looked like he wasn’t really into the idea of learning how to play.

“It’s Dick,” he corrected before shaking his head. “And I banged on a drum a few times, I guess?”

Bruce shrugged, deciding not to question the boy’s choice of nickname. “I suppose it counts. How about I show you something?” He waved his fingers, motioning for Dick to follow him.

They went into one of the other rooms together where Bruce had the piano set up. He sat down on the bench and patted the space next to him. When Dick sat down Bruce started playing. He decided on playing a fast, more non-traditional song. Something that was a little more fun and one that got your foot tapping. 

It was clearly a good choice, because Bruce was just about halfway through the piece when Dick started bobbing his head along with the music. He finished the song with a flourish and immediately continued on to a different song, watching closely as Dick started getting into the music a bit more.

By the time that Bruce finished Dick had been tapping his fingers against the bench and swaying along. It took a moment for him to realize that Bruce was done and he seemed to slump a little.

“I have more to show you.”

This time Dick seemed to happily follow him instead of just following because he asked him to. Bruce showed him around a little bit more, telling him about the different instruments that he had and that he was also willing to teach something else, it was just that these were the ones he was most comfortable with.

They eventually ended up back in the front room. Bruce caught Mary and John’s eyes looking over at them in question. He felt a little bad for making them wait for so long, but he was intrigued by Dick and wanted to see what made the boy tick a little more.

“How about you promise me that you look up the instruments that I showed you today and if you see one that you think you’d like to try, you can get your parents to call me.” Bruce suggested.

“Yeah, I guess we can do that.” Dick said with a big smile.

His parents both looked hopeful, but Bruce didn’t want them to get their hopes up. If it turned out that Dick had no interest in learning, then Bruce wasn’t going to force him.

He wasn’t really surprised when he got a call a few days later from a very excited Dick who was talking on the phone so fast that he could barely follow what he was saying.

The only words that he caught were “-western concert flute!”

That was how Bruce got his first student.  
  


* * *

 

Dick Grayson was a bundle of energy. Bruce liked to call him bouncy and excitable, which made him wonder just how Dick had gotten the idea of wanting to try out the western concert flute.

It did take quite a bit of coordination to handle it properly and a big lung capacity, both of which Dick seemed to have.

Bruce hadn’t really expected to be teaching someone to play the flute first. It was a good thing that he had thought ahead and actually gotten a beginners’ flute. Not that it really mattered, but it most certainly just wasn’t what he had planned on.

But Bruce was used to life throwing him curveballs, so he went along with it. Just like Dick seemed to do.

The boy seemed a little disappointed that the practice flute was made out of plastic instead of metal, but he quickly got over it when he learned that they were fundamentally the same.

The good thing was that Bruce already had some experience working with boys the same age as Dick. The bad thing was that the twins had been much calmer and not as easily sidetracked as Dick. Bruce, as a much focused individual himself, was having problems keeping Dick’s attention most of the time. The boy was genuinely interested in learning how to play, but it seemed like he needed to do it more on his own time than anything else. You couldn’t just force him to sit down and focus when you wanted to.

Once Dick really got focused, however, they would be able to sit and seriously work on his practicing for the entire time that they were in the studio. It often felt too short of a time when his father came by to pick him up after every lesson.

At first Bruce only taught Dick in the studio, but after a few weeks he decided that the boy was responsible enough to take the flute home so he could practice outside of lessons.

The look on Dick’s face when his father came to pick him up that day and he showed him the sleek black case that he was allowed to bring home with him almost reminded Bruce of himself when he was younger. Running up to his mother and just being so eager to learn.

Once Dick was able to practice more in his own free time, Bruce noticed that his performance rate was on the up and up.

Every time they would get together Dick would run up to him and tell him something new.

“Bruce! I started talking with some of the band kids and school and this one girl showed me this really cool trick!”

“I watched a video the other day and I totally get what you were saying last time!”

“My mom and I saw this movie and it was about cats and they were playing on the piano and talking about scales and arpeggios! Just like you!”

Dick was a very fast and eager learner. It didn’t take long at all for the flute to become an extension of his body rather than just an instrument. It was always interesting and, admittedly, a little strange to see all the different kind of positions that Dick practiced in, even though Bruce kept telling him that he wasn’t supposed to practice the flute hanging upside down off the back of the couch.

“My wife and I would like to thank you, Mister Wayne,” John said one day as they were waiting for Dick to come back from the bathroom. “Dick can be a bit of a handful sometimes, and we’re just so glad you’re taking the time to teach him.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for. If anything, I should thank you for bringing him here. And call me Bruce, I insist.” They had been seeing each other weekly for months now. Bruce was still trying to get John and Mary to be less formal with him.

“Bruce, of course.”

Dick came running in from the back then, his hands still damp and handprints on the front of his shirt. He took the case over from his father. “I’m ready to go!”

John patted Dick’s shoulder and they all waved goodbye before the pair left the studio.

Bruce let out a sigh and scratched the back of his neck. He’d really come to enjoy his time with Dick, but sometimes it was just hard to keep up with him.

“Oh, Bruce!” Dick had come running back, his cheeks red as he held the door open. “I forgot to tell you. I’m hanging out with some of the band kids and they think that I’ve learned a lot and that I should join band after the summer and I think I’m going to!”

“That sounds like a great idea, Dick.” Bruce said. He was really happy that not only had Dick found something that he really liked to do, but now he was connecting with other kids as well. It had been such a problem for him when Bruce had met him.

Without warning Dick ran inside and threw himself at Bruce, wrapping his arms around his waist. “Thanks, Bruce! You’re awesome!” Dick said quickly before he ran out again, not even giving Bruce a moment to hug him back.

“You’re awesome too, kid,” Bruce said to the empty studio.  
  


* * *

 

It surprised Bruce just how involved he got with the Grayson’s. He supposed that it was because Dick was the only student that he was teaching and that they all saw each other on a fairly regular basis. Dick’s magnetic energy was another important point to factor in.

Bruce was invited to a few different get togethers and rehearsals and even helped pitch in to get Dick his very own straight head flute for his twelfth birthday. He surprised Mary and John with a fancy day out on their anniversary and even offered to watch Dick so they didn’t have to get a sitter. They ended up spending the day in the studio, trying to out play each other.

Dick had already proven to be a very good musician and he was better than Bruce could ever wish to be on the flute, but he was still very far behind to meeting Bruce at the skill level that he had on the piano, no matter how hard he tried.

They had skyped together with Klara and Verena a few times, which had gone over pretty well. Verena was just happy to see that Bruce was doing well and that he’d gotten a student of his own. His German had gotten a little rusty over time and she chastised him for it. Meanwhile Dick couldn’t understand a word that Verena was saying and relied on Bruce and Klara to translate both ends, but no translation was needed when he played the flute just to show off how good Bruce had been teaching him. It had been a very heartwarming conversation and they had a few of them over the years. There was even talk that Klara would take Verena to Gotham one day so they could see Bruce’s music studio.

When Bruce got his Bachelor’s Alfred even went behind his back to invite the Grayson’s over for a surprise dinner as a celebration.

At one point that’s just how it was and they were just always there.

Everyone all often asked why Bruce never took on another student, but he discovered that he was content with just teaching Dick. Even when he started getting instruction from better informed teachers at his school Dick still always came just to practice with Bruce.

It meant that he didn’t come around as often anymore, but he still came. Not much really changed between them or changed for Bruce.

Until he was asked if he wanted to join a program run by the city for underprivileged youth.

It had been a spur of the moment decision, but he’d said yes.  
  


* * *

 

Jason Todd was his second student and he was…a challenge to say the least.

Bruce didn’t exactly know what he had been expecting when he agreed to join the underprivileged youth outreach program besides that he had stipulated that he would only be taking in one applicant.

It was different this time around. When he had been searching to teach his first student, Bruce had held interviews with applicants and ended up choosing Dick to be his student. Now he didn’t have much of a say. The children would sign up for the program and choose their preferred activities and it was the organization that ran the program that would place the children in accordance to what they had chosen.

There was a lot more going on, but those were the only parts that Bruce had gotten from them. They were, honestly, the only parts that he needed as well. He received a notice one day, stating that a child had been matched with him and it gave up the days that the child had given up as available.

Before he even came in Bruce knew quite a few things about Jason Todd, twelve years old, resident of East Gotham near Crime Alley. His father a criminal who had worked for one of the mobsters in town and had gotten sent to jail. His mother a recovering drug addict. Jason was often truant in school, but his teachers noted that he had an eagerness to learn and he worked hard whenever he was present.

(Alfred had shaken his head and tutted as Bruce called in a favor from Town Hall and gotten Jason Todd’s information so he could read through it all. It wasn’t his fault that he wanted to know what he was getting into.)

As other preparations Bruce made sure that he would have nothing else to do on the days that Jason was slated to come. Dick had been informed, but it hadn’t really mattered to him. He often practiced with the school band or his friends now. Mostly he gave Bruce a heads up when he came over, because he knew that Bruce wasn’t always around.

Bruce made sure to brush up on some beginner’s lessons as well. From what he had gleamed from Jason’s records, the boy had likely never touched an instrument before. Not even a recorder, which Bruce knew that public schools often had a course in at one point or another. There was going to be a lot of working around and figuring out what he was going to do with Jason and, more importantly, what Jason would want.

He was standing at the ready at four o’clock, the time that Jason was supposed to arrive. And Bruce waited. Ten minutes, fifteen. Half an hour.

It wasn’t until a quarter to five that the door to the studio suddenly opened and Bruce got up from the seat he had been lounging in, drinking cold coffee that he’d gotten an hour earlier.

He looked up over the half wall that served as a sort of waiting room to see a kid standing by the door. The boy was wearing a ragged red hoodie and his pants were too short, showing off his skinny ankles.

“Hey. Anyone around?” The boy called out.

Bruce got up and noticed that the boy – Jason – wasn’t startled by him appearing out of nowhere. In fact, Jason seemed to very much be on his toes.

“I’m here,” Bruce said as he walked over.

Jason’s lips were pursed and he took a very obvious glance over Bruce, taking him in. “Look, it isn’t my fault I’m late, okay? Do you know how annoying it is to take a bus from East End to here? Seriously.”

Bruce looked down and saw a page sticking out of the pocket of Jason’s hoodie. Instructions to the studio written down in a surprisingly legible hand for a twelve year old boy. Now that he was standing closer, Bruce was able to get a better look at Jason. The boy was quite a bit shorter than Dick had been at that age, and skinnier as well. There was a slight gauntness in his cheeks that was enough of a reminder of Jason’s living situations. The bags under his eyes were much worse than any kid at his age should ever have as well.

But despite all of that Jason still held himself confidently. Didn’t seem to really care or notice the stark contrast between him and Bruce, who was wearing slacks and a soft, black turtleneck.

“My name’s Bruce,” he started as he held out his hand. “You must be Jason.”

Jason stared at Bruce’s hand and looked at him with his eyebrows raised. It was a moment before he reached out to shake Bruce’s hand. Bruce had to hold back a smile. That was a pretty firm grip that Jason had.

“Yeah, look. I’ll be honest with you.” Jason’s accent was so indicative of a native Gothamite with the slight drawl that east enders tended to have. “I signed up for music because my ma wanted me to and I really didn’t expect to be sent to such a…fancy place. Why the hell are you even doing this? I bet people pay a shit load of cash just to even walk through these doors.”

“Why don’t you come in and we’ll talk more? I have some soda.” Bruce offered.

There was that stare again. That very calculating stare. It almost felt like Jason was trying to analyze him, strip him down to see what he was made of. “I don’t want any unless you got root beer.”

“You happen to be in luck.” Bruce made a very deliberate choice to turn his back to Jason, keeping his posture relaxed as he walked to the small room near the front that had a small fridge in it. It was mostly filled with soda that Dick brought along and the food that Alfred always insisted that Bruce brought along.

Bruce grabbed a soda can and held it out, which Jason took from him. “What’s a guy like you doing with root beer?”

“You don’t think I could like root beer?”

Jason looked down, scuffing his shoes against the floor. “I didn’t mean that.”

“You did, but that’s okay. I don’t like root beer. It’s only here because of my other student.” Bruce pulled out some water for himself and leaned against the wall as he held onto the bottle.

“Other student? As in singular.” Jason immediately took the way out of the awkward conversation.

“Yes. Up until now I’ve only been teaching one other boy, and now I’m teaching you.” Bruce told him.

“Why’d you do that?”

“Do what?”

Jason scoffed, rubbing his finger against the top of the can. “Only one student.”

“I was going to school at the same time.” Bruce explained.

“So what made you sign up to do this?” Jason asked him.

Bruce thought about it for a moment. Why had he agreed to work with the outreach program? “I guess I was a little bored. My other student doesn’t come by as often anymore.”

He watched as Jason bristled. Had he said something wrong? “Look, I’m not here to be your pet project or something. Bruce Wayne heroically teaches kid from Crime Alley how to play music.” Jason said mockingly.

“Perhaps I phrased that wrong.” Bruce quickly said. Sure, he hadn’t really thought it through all that well when he’d agreed to join, but Jason wasn’t by far a pet project. “I guess you could say that I’d gotten so used to having my other student around so much that when he started finding his own way I felt a little lost.”

“There’s a simple solution to that.” Jason’s eyes were narrowed, judging Bruce.

“What’s that?”

“You just get another student.” Jason said matter of factly.

“And that’s why you’re here.” Bruce pointed at Jason with his bottle and left the room. For a second he thought that Jason wasn’t going to follow him, but he soon heard the shuffling of shoes behind him. “We won’t be doing anything concrete today, or for a few days. The thing that we want to do now is figure out what you want to play. What works for you.”

Jason spoke up as they walked past the room with the grand piano. “My ma wants me to play the piano.”

“What do you want?”

Jason was silent again and Bruce just kept walking, keeping a slow pace so the boy could peer into each room and see the instruments that were set up. “I like the guitar…”

It wasn’t really what Bruce had asked and since Jason trailed off a little he decided to let the boy see everything that he had to offer before he would ask Jason if he had any ideas of what he might want to play.

They reached the end of the hall and Jason still hadn’t said anything, but there was a thoughtful look on his face. He was idly playing with the lip of his soda cap, catching the metal under his nail and almost strumming it like a pick. Perhaps he would end up going for the guitar. He had big hands for his size and long fingers, which would certainly come in handy for a string instrument.

“I think I want…” Jason muttered as he started walking back.

Bruce followed behind him as a silent overseer. He wasn’t going to tell Jason what to play or encourage him to pick one instrument over the other. He wanted Jason to choose all by himself. That way he might feel the bond towards the instrument instead of being pressured into it.

Bruce honestly thought that Jason was going to head straight for the guitar, but the boy hesitated for a second before he stepped towards the violin.

“This one’s fancy too. I think my ma wouldn’t mind me going for this instead of the piano.” Jason walked over to the violin, but didn’t reach out to touch it.

“You could say that it’s fancy, but the violin was popular among commoners and nobility. It’s a very nice in-between. You can touch it if you want. It’s not going to break.” Bruce was noticing how hesitant Jason actually seemed. He didn’t know if it was because Jason was uncomfortable or just not used to his surroundings.

Jason took a deep breath and Bruce watched as he held it before reaching out to run his fingers over the upper bout of the violin. He didn’t exhale until his hand was back down by his side. “Is it hard to learn?”

“It can certainly challenging. Are you up for that?”

There was a spark in Jason’s eyes as he looked up at Bruce and nodded. “I’m always up for a challenge.”

“Good. We can talk some more today and start next week.”  Bruce felt just as ready as Jason looked in that moment.  
  


* * *

 

“So what’s a rich guy like you spending his time teaching street rats how to play the violin?” Jason asked with a small smirk. It was said teasingly, but Bruce could hear the seriousness behind the question.

“Don’t drop your elbow.” Bruce reached out to tap Jason’s arm to get him to lift it up slightly again. He was focusing more on talking than actually playing. “I told you before. My mother used to play and I just decided to teach.”

“From what I heard you didn’t just decide.” Jason looked back at the violin, his brow furrowing slightly as he tried to get his fingers back in the proper position.

Bruce sat back, crossing his arms over his chest. “What did you hear?”

Jason sighed and pulled the violin away from his collarbone. The skin was a little red. He’d taken to squeezing the violin too tightly. Bruce was still trying to get him to relax more. “The old lady who lives in the apartment across from us said you dropped out of university in a drunken stupor and just vamoosed before suddenly showing up again all like: ‘hello again Gotham! I’ve come back, but not to take over Wayne Enterprises, but to teach music!’”

“Well, she’s not really wrong.” Even the drunken stupor part was on par. The look on Jason’s face at his admission was quite amusing. His lips flattened a little and his brows furrowed. It was like he was actually surprised that Bruce admitted to that so simply and without worry. “I didn’t want to become CEO of my father’s company. Honestly, I didn’t know what I wanted to do period. So I travelled for a while.”

Jason’s lips pulled back into a slight sneer. “Must be nice. Just being able to pick up everything without a care and just leave.”

He supposed that if you phrased it that way, it sounded kind of bad. Bruce knew about Jason’s father, but not through what the boy had told him himself. It would probably be insensible to make a comment about that at this point. Jason was still on his toes around Bruce, even though he had started to relax. Bruce could also see the drive to learn that he’d read about. Jason didn’t seem to be pleased at the pace he was learning, but that didn’t stop him from doing his best.

“I came back, eventually.” Bruce settled for saying.

“Yeah. You’d be one of the first.” Jason’s knuckles were getting pale from how tightly he was holding onto the bow.

That was another thing that Bruce had noticed. It took very little to annoy or make Jason angry. He seemed to be walking around on a hair thin trigger most of the time. Bruce had told him off once, but that had just made Jason storm off in a huff. The time after that he simply said to be more careful with the violin. That worked perfectly and Bruce often used it to diffuse any tempers before they could fly.

“I came back because of a woman who had a music school and her student.” Bruce started telling Jason. So far he’d only ever told Alfred and Dick about this.

“Okay?” Jason trailed off as if he didn’t really know why Bruce was telling him this.

Bruce chuckled and shook his head. “The student, Klara, gave me a swift kick to the ass.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “Oh shit, really?”

“Well, figuratively. But she might as well have. Told me to stop moping around and acting butthurt.” He actually got a snort and small smile from Jason at that. “Klara and our teacher, Verena, came out to see my graduation. Saw the studio. They were proud of me and I realized that I owed this all to them. For helping me see past all the things that I thought were wrong in my life and set me on a straight path.”

“So that’s really all you needed? A swift kick to the ass?” Jason asked, his grip relaxing again and his fingers returning to their natural colour.

“I needed a lot of things, but that was the most valuable. Since then I’ve had a circus acrobat whip me up into shape and a street rat who keeps me on my toes.” Bruce knew that he was risking a bit here, but he was willing to be that Jason would appreciate it.

“Yeah, well… You’re welcome, B.” His gamble had turned out to be the right thing and Jason lifted the violin up again, a determined and focused look on his face.  
  


* * *

 

Jason had so much potential and he was so eager to learn. Once they had gotten closer things went a lot smoother. There were less outbursts, less poorly thought out responses and more playing.

Dick might have had raw talent, but there was a drive in Jason that surpassed even Bruce’s own.

It was a real treat teaching Jason and Bruce was glad that he’d signed up for the program. Sometimes they would talk a lot, but sometimes Jason came in with a pinched look on his face and hunched back and they would just play. There was so much emotion in Jason and the way that he translated to the way he was playing was breathtaking to listen and watch. The way that he poured himself completely into the music he was playing.

Of course, it was inevitable that Dick and Jason meet at one point. Bruce once thought that the two boys would get along pretty well, but that didn’t really prove to exactly be true.

They were sitting down, just going through a set of slurs as warm up for Jason when Bruce suddenly heard the bell that signified that the front door had opened. Bruce wasn’t expecting anyone today and it had been years since someone had just come into the studio uninvited. It was already well known that walking into Bruce Wayne’s music studio was just not done.

“Bruce! You here?”

Dick? What was he doing here? “Keep warming up.” Bruce told Jason and he got up to meet his other student.

In the past few months that he’d been teaching Jason, Dick had never dropped by unannounced. Especially since Bruce told him that he wouldn’t be available certain days.

He walked to the front room and saw Dick, already making his way deeper into the studio. “Hey, Bruce! I was in the area and saw that you were open. I thought you said that you weren’t around on Tuesdays.”

“Dick.” Bruce said as a greeting, but the teen quickly slipped by him.

“Hey, is that a violin? I would’ve thought that you’d be practicing at the manor.”

“Dick, wait.”

It was too late though. Dick had already walked into the room and by the time Bruce got there the two boys were staring at each other. Jason was still holding his violin up, but he wasn’t playing anymore.

“Who are you?” Dick asked.

Jason lowered his bow. “I’m Jason. So you’re Dick, huh? B talks about you a lot.”

Questioning blue eyes were turned to Bruce before they flicked back to Jason. “Yeah… Uh, I didn’t know that Bruce was teaching someone else.”

He could tell by the downturn of Jason’s mouth that he wasn’t pleased. It was true that Bruce hadn’t gotten around to telling Dick about Jason, but that didn’t matter. Right? He certainly hoped so.

“Yeah. He said you weren’t around much anymore, so he went looking for someone else to teach.” Jason said with a nonchalant shrug.

That wasn’t how Bruce would phrase it. He was going to correct Jason, but of course he was beaten to it.

“What? Bruce, you should’ve told me. You said that you wouldn’t mind if I practiced with the band.” Dick turned back to him again.

“I don’t mind. It’s just that-”

“He just wanted someone else.” Jason interjected. He’d lowered his violin now as well and his eyes were narrowed.

“Wow, you’re such a violin player. Bruce really knows how to pick them.” Dick said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Whoa. What does that mean?” Jason jumped up, but he very carefully set the violin back on its stand.

Dick immediately waved his hand at Jason. “Look at you. All stuck up and anal about your instrument.”

“That violin there costs more than you could even imagine.” Jason had been so shocked that he’d almost walked into a wall the first time that Bruce told him.

“Oh, please. Like I don’t hear that every other day.” Dick faked a yawn.

Jason bristled, clenching his fists by his side. “Yeah, well if we’re going by stereotypes here, mister Hi-I’m-a-Flutist, then I guess that makes you an oversexed manwhore!”

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that, you prepubescent twig!”

“Or what? Are you going to call your boytoys over to kick my ass?”

“Stop!” Bruce shouted out. Luckily for him both of the boys listened to him, but Bruce made sure to step in between them to act as a barrier. “I will not tolerate such behaviour in my studio! You can either act like proper people or walk out the front door.”

It was silent, but the air was filled with tension. Even standing in between them Bruce could just feel the weight of their glares.

Dick was the one who finally broke off. “Whatever. I’ll come back and we can have a talk, Bruce.” He very pointedly said. Dick turned to leave, but he made sure to stick his tongue out at Jason before going.

Bruce sighed, reaching up to rub the bridge of his nose. That had gone downhill way too fast. He’s never really expected for Dick and Jason’s first meeting to be so explosive.

“Put that down.” Bruce said, just knowing that Jason was flipping Dick off.

“Sheesh. He really lives up to his namesake, doesn’t he?”

“We’re going to just be doing slurs today.”

“Wait, what?”

“I expect to hear a perfect three note slur when I come back.”

Jason shouted out after him as Bruce left the room. “Where are you going?”

“To get some Advil.” Bruce grumbled to himself. He really didn’t want to get a headache over this.  
  


* * *

 

Dick and Jason inevitably bumped into each other again. For whatever annoying reason they both started showing up on days when they weren’t supposed to be around just to butt into each other’s business.

Bruce had to interfere more than once.

He’d even kicked both of them out of the studio once.

Eventually Bruce had been at his wits end with the two boys, and he’d called Klara up in frustration just to vent, since Alfred didn’t really understand what was going on.

He’d had a good talk with her and she just sat back and listened to him as he basically ranted about how on edge he was because his students were butting heads and only making it harder on themselves and him by being so obnoxious about it. By the end of it Bruce was panting because of how fast he had been talking and he felt relieved. Not only because he’d been able to tell his whole story, but also because there was just something very satisfying about ranting in German.

Klara just shrugged and suggested that he make the boys work together on a piece. Force them to work together. It was how she and Bruce had gotten along. Despite how exhausting that sounded, it was a good idea. The only problem what that with Klara and Bruce, it had only been her who had stuck her nose up at him. Both Dick and Jason were at each other’s throats.

But Klara had gone over to Verena and she had wholeheartedly approved of the plan, while also expressing her displeasure at Dick’s behaviour and insisting to talk to Jason one of these days.

Bruce signed off agreeing to their plan, but he still felt grim. He didn’t really know how to make the two boys see eye to eye.

So Bruce set out to find a piece for them to work on together. One that wouldn’t be too advanced for Jason, but also not too simplistic for Dick. They needed to work together, they needed to complement each other.

The only thing that Bruce really wanted was for them to at least tolerate each other. It would make life infinitely easier.

When he finally decided on a song and a plan of attack Bruce asked both of the boys to come in on the weekend instead of their usual weekdays.

Jason was the one that arrived first. He tended to be early because he always tried to be accommodating with transit. “Hey, B.” Jason looked good. He was awake, alert, and in a good mood. Bruce just hoped that it would last long enough for them to accomplish things.

“Jason. Thanks for coming today.”

“Yeah, sure. You gonna tell me what for?”

“I’d like for you to practice and perform a piece.”

Jason immediately perked up at hearing that. “Really? You think I’m ready for that?”

In the past few months Jason had been progressing in leaps and bounds. “I think you’re more than ready for it. If you’re up for the challenge.”

“Y’know me. Up for anything you can hit me with.”

“Bruce! Sorry I’m late. I ran into Barbara on my way here and-”

Dick came to a stop, his arms still up in the air from how he’d been gesturing as he spoke. Sparks were flying the instant that Jason and Dick met eyes.

“What’s he doing here?” Both of their voices rang out in unison.

“B, I dunno what you’re trying to pull but…” Jason paused and turned to Bruce with wide eyes. He just smiled at the boy. What a smart kid. “Aw hell no. Nope. No. I am not gonna play with him!”

“What do you mean? I don’t get it.”

Bruce walked around them and locked the front door. He made sure to stand in front of it with his arms crossed. Neither of them would be leaving any time soon. “I’ve already set up a room for you. The sheet music is waiting.”

“C’mon! I’m not gonna do this. This is unfair!”

“Yeah, it is. You can’t make us play together.”

He was almost proud of them. It was the first time that he’d gotten the both of them to agree on something.

“How about you prove me wrong? Show me that you can’t play together.”

Dick’s face got red for a second before he spun on his heel. “Fine! Let’s go.”

“Oi! Wait for me, Dickface!”

The next few hours were torture and Bruce wasn’t even sitting in the room with Dick and Jason. He was supervising to make sure that the boys wouldn’t fight, but he wasn’t interjecting at all. Bruce made sure that he had coffee and Advil set aside. The first few times that the boys worked together was going to be hell, he knew that for certain.

Just to make sure that Klara would realize what she’d done to him, Bruce turned on his voice recorder and just let it sit for ten minutes while he closed his eyes and tried to meditate and block out all of the noises.

“No, you’re supposed to do it like this.”

“Hey! Who’s the violin player? You stick your phallic woodwind.”

“You need to learn to play your flimsy string better.”

If Bruce was a lesser man he was sure that he would have cried.

He was just lucky that both Dick and Jason were the kind of boys who never backed down once they got their minds on something. Bruce simply needed to nudge them in the right direction and they’d, eventually, do what he wanted.

He wasn’t really timing it, but it was a few hours later (four hours, twenty-five minutes and forty-three seconds) that Bruce finally started hearing music instead of arguing voices. Dick and Jason had been playing throughout their arguments, but this was the first time that Bruce only heard music.

It was disjointed and horribly out of time, but it was music nonetheless.

It would take them almost a month to learn how to work together and play a coherent piece, but they did it. Despite all of the doubts that Bruce had, they actually managed to do it.

They begrudgingly worked together and had been so focused on one upping each other that they just started playing without even really noticing. How they managed to do that was still beyond Bruce, but it was a thing. An actual thing that happened.

When they were finally finished and were insisting on showing Bruce, he’d called Klara and Verena up and they’d listened along with him.

At the end Dick had jumped forward, eager to say hello to Klara and he’d wrapped an arm around Jason’s shoulder to tug him in close so Verena could see the both of them. Bruce saw the way that Jason initially tensed, but it didn’t take long for him to relax. Even though they were still butting heads, it wasn’t even close to as bad as before. Bruce imagined that it was like how brothers would act with each other.

“I told you so.” Klara said with a satisfied smile as Bruce moved in to say goodbye.

“Yeah, yeah. Soak it up, why don’t you?” Bruce rolled his eyes.

(“Did he just roll his eyes?” Jason whispered behind him.

“Yeah, but he only does it around Klara.” Dick said.)

“I do not know this soak it up.”

“Sure you don’t.”  
  


* * *

 

Time seemed to go by a lot faster now that he had two students.

It certainly helped that Dick and Jason started getting along a lot more. They still butted, but they were able to stand each other’s presence now, which was a big help in and of itself.

Bruce found that he actually liked having two students. It broke the slight monotony of always teaching the same kind of instrument. He was able to work with the both of them separately, but he also started scheduling more dual practices.

He could really tell that those practices really helped Jason. Jason often enjoyed the times when he and Bruce worked on the violin together, but he seemed to enjoy it even more when Dick was around. Perhaps it was because Dick was a student himself, or perhaps it was because of Jason’s competitive side. Bruce didn’t know, but he wasn’t particularly keen to ask. It didn’t really matter what was going on. What mattered was that Jason was learning and that he was having a fun time doing it.

Jason’s potential was enormous. Bruce already noticed that his talent wasn’t as strong as Dick’s was, but he was a very studious learner. He would struggle with learning things, but he’d never give up. It’d take a while longer for him to learn, but when he finally did the end results were astounding.

Sometimes Bruce had him look at different string instruments. They tried the piano once because of Jason’s curiosity, but those lessons hadn’t gone very well. Instead Bruce showed him the cello and the guitar. They turned out to be successes in that Jason was able to pick them up easily, but even when given the choice to Jason would always return to the violin.

One day after their lessons Bruce caught Jason plucking at the harp in his foyer and he just stood there and watched him. Jason was standing by the harp, plucking at the strings with his eyes closed. It was clear that he was listening to figure out the notes. It always brought a smile to Bruce’s face when he thought about how far Jason had come since he’d arrived as a scrappy twelve year old with a temper. Now, two years later, Jason was much more focused, much more refined. Bruce liked to think that part of that was because of his teachings, but it could also just be cropped up to the fact that Jason was growing up as well.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Bruce eventually spoke up.

It was another indication of how safe Jason felt here when he didn’t startle at all, and just opened his eyes. “It is. Why is it up here and not in one of the rooms?”

“It’s mostly a showpiece, but sometimes I like to sit behind it and watch the people of Gotham walk by,” Bruce said. Jason nodded, like he understood where Bruce was coming from. “If you’d like, I can show you how to play it.”

“Yeah, that’d be awesome, B,” Jason said with a smile.

“Good, you should run and catch your bus.” He knew that Jason would have to wait around for a while otherwise and the boy was always turning down rides when Bruce offered them.

“I’ll see ya.”

Bruce always wondered how their exchange would’ve gone differently if he’d known that Jason wouldn’t be coming back after that day. Would he have gone up to hug him and held him close? Would he have not let Jason go at all?

He’d never know.  
  


* * *

 

It was strange that Jason was so late. He’d stopped coming late after the few first weeks of his lessons and Bruce had already checked up on the website for public transit to make sure that there weren’t any delays or anything.

What was even stranger was that Jason had always called to tell Bruce if he wasn’t coming.

So when Jason didn’t arrive an hour later, two hours later, three hours later, Bruce started getting very worried. The main problem was that he didn’t have a way of contacting Jason. The boy didn’t have a cell phone and Bruce had never been given a phone number either.

Bruce was distracted as he was driving home. Even after two years he didn’t know all that much about Jason besides the situation that he lived him. Neither of them were very keen about talking about their personal lives, so it’d never really come up.

It was too late to call the organization, so Bruce had to wait until they opened up again in the morning. He hadn’t slept at all that night and he was on the phone as soon as the call lines were open.

“Gotham outreach program, how may I help you?” The woman on the other end opened with.

“My name is Bruce Wayne. I’m part of the music outreach program and I’m calling about the boy who was assigned to me.” He started with.

“May I have your information?” She asked and Bruce gritted his teeth as he went through his papers to find the official information to give to her. He could hear her typing on the other end and it was taking way too long. He should have just gone down to the office himself. That would’ve been much more- “Mister Wayne? It says here that a Jason Todd was removed from the program earlier this week.”

His heart sunk. “From my program?” That didn’t make any sense. Jason hadn’t given Bruce any indication that he would be leaving at all.

“No, Mr. Wayne. From the outreach program.”

None of this was making any sense at all. There was no way that Jason would ever just up and leave without an explanation. Bruce knew him. He would’ve called. Jason would’ve told Bruce about it. “Does it say why?”

“Unfortunately not, Mister Wayne.”

“Can you give me his contact information?”

“I’m not permitted to give out personal information.”

“I understand… Thank you for your time.” Bruce quickly hung up after that. There had to be a way that he could get Jason’s information. 

Bruce got up, staring at the phone in his hand as he paced behind his desk. There had to be a way. Now the question was where the citizen records were held. Would it be at City Hall? Bruce didn’t know anyone who worked in city hall. He came to a stop when he realized that he did know the district attorney.

He quickly pulled out his cell phone and rang up Harvey Dent.

“Bruce? I didn’t know you could be up so early-”

“I need your help, Harvey.” Bruce didn’t waste any time getting to the point.

“As in legally?”

“No. Not really?” Bruce sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Can you look up civilian records? Or maybe do you know someone who can get a hold of records like that?”

Harvey was silent for a moment. “Bruce. What’s this about?”

“For the past two years I’ve been part of the Gotham outreach program and I’ve been teaching a boy – Jason – and he failed to show up yesterday. He usually calls and I was worried, so I called the organization that runs the program and found out that he was removed from it. But that doesn’t make sense. Jason and I were making plans for our next session. He would’ve called if something came up. I need to know.” Bruce was almost out of breath by the time that he finished speaking.

“So you think something might’ve happened to him?” Harvey asked.

“Yes! Now can you help me or not?” Bruce wasn’t going to stay on the line if he wasn’t going to get a clear answer. He’d march down to City Hall himself if he needed to.

Harvey stayed quiet for a long time before Bruce heard him sigh. “I’ll see what I can do. I can’t promise you anything.”

“That’s all I ask. His name is Jason Peter Todd.”

Waiting was torture. Bruce wanted to jump into his car and storm City Hall, but he decided that it was only fair that he give Harvey some time to work on it. Alfred shooed him out of the kitchen when he’d come from breakfast and told him that he ought to find something else to do while he waited.

Bruce settled down in his bedroom in the end, closing his curtains and sitting on his bed as he tried to meditate. Key word being try. His phone was on the nightstand beside him and he couldn’t stop peeking at it every few seconds.

Logically he knew that his phone would ring and vibrate. He’d already turned it up to full volume. There was no way that he was going to miss a call or a text message from anyone at this point, but Bruce couldn’t tear himself away from it.

He never expected that he would ever be so invested in someone else before or that he’d be so worried. But Bruce was. He really was worried. All he wanted to know – all he needed to know – was that Jason was okay. The boy had to be. There was no way that Jason would ever let anything happen to him. He was too resilient. Too full of life. He’d kick anyone down before they even got the chance to get close to him.

Bruce kept repeated this to himself. It sounded like he was just trying to convince himself that everything was going to be alright, when he knew there was a large chance that it wasn’t. Bruce knew that Jason lived in the rougher part of Gotham. He knew that Jason’s mother was a drug addict and his father was connected to organized crime. There were so many things that could’ve gone wrong. There was a high chance that Jason had been removed from the program because something had happened to him. And now there was a high chance that Bruce would never know. He’d never find out.

Bruce didn’t even realize how much he was shaking until his phone started ringing, Harvey’s name appearing on the screen, and he reached out to grab it. He quickly held it up to his ear and took a deep breath to make sure that he sounded composed. “Harvey.”

“Bruce. Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

He placed his hand over his mouth to hold back any involuntary sounds that he might make. “Uh… Good news?”

“He’s alive and well.”

Just hearing that lifted such a heavy burden off of Bruce’s shoulders. “And the bad news?”

“His mother passed away. Drug overdose. He was taken in by the state.” Harvey told him.

“What- What does that mean?” Bruce had no idea how that worked. When he’d been orphaned he had Alfred. As far as he knew, Jason didn’t have anyone besides his mother. His father was in jail.

“It means he’s a ward of the state. They’ll be looking to place him into a foster family. That’s all I can tell you. From what it sounds like, he’s been taken out of Gotham.” Harvey sounded like he was trying to lighten the blow. Like he knew the turmoil of what was going on in Bruce’s mind.

“Is there any way to find him? Track him down?” A wild idea appeared in Bruce’s mind. Maybe he could take Jason in.

 “That’s not my jurisdiction, Bruce. You’ll have to contact a proper representative for that,” Harvey told him with a solemn tone.

“I’ll do it.”

And Bruce did. Tirelessly. Endlessly. He did everything in his power to find Jason. Hired the best in the business and practically hounded them.

It was all for naught.

Somewhere in between foster families Jason had run off and hadn’t been seen since. Part of Bruce hoped that he’d find his way back to Gotham. That Jason would show up at his studio and act like nothing had happened.

He waited.

Days. Weeks. Months.

“Bruce?” Bruce jolted and he turned to Dick, who looked very concerned. “Are you okay? You’ve been staring out the window for almost half an hour now.”

“I’m fine, Dick.” He waved him off.

“You’re not fine. You haven’t been fine for a while.”

Didn’t Bruce know it. He knew that he wasn’t fine. He was all too aware of it, all too aware of the space in his chest that had been healing now had a crack in it. “I’ll be fine.” Even Bruce could hear the lie in his own words.


	3. Tim And Stephanie

It was a feeling all too familiar. The feeling of something inside of him that was. A feeling that he carried around as a burden until he found his way to a music school in Austria. The space started healing when he returned to Gotham and started his music studio. The space that kept healing when Dick and Jason had come along. The space that was now cracked and brittle.

For the first little while Bruce had been in a sort of lull, but even that had gotten tedious after a time. Bruce needed to do something. There was a time where he might have reached for alcohol or run off to go on a world trip, but that wasn’t him anymore.

Instead Bruce decided that he needed something to focus on. That something were percussion instruments.

He’d gotten himself new instruments and decided to teach himself. There was no need for a teacher when he could do it to himself. There were a few that he tried, but it was the drums that he felt most solace in. There was just something about the beat and the loud sounds that resonated in him.

He pulled away from the people closest to him. Bruce knew that. He could seeing the worry in Alfred’s eyes and the questioning glances from Dick.

At first he spent a lot of his time practicing at the studio, but as time went on it started getting harder to go there. To know that there would be no one there besides him. Even Dick stopped coming the studio while Bruce was there, only to find the doors locked shut and his phone calls unanswered.

So Bruce closed the studio. He put up a sign that it would be closed until further notice. What he really wanted to do was focus on himself first. There were so many things that he could learn. So many different instruments that he knew the basics of, but decided that he needed to learn more; that he needed to know more.

After the drums he’d turned to the violin, but after a few sessions on his own, Bruce couldn’t do it. There was a broken violin in the corner of his music room in the manor. It hadn’t moved or been cleaned up. Bruce had forbidden Alfred from coming into the room any longer. It was just a room for him. No one else. Just a room for Bruce and his music.

While Bruce liked playing music, he’d never really been much of a composer. It wasn’t about creating pieces of music, it was always about playing music for him. Sure, he often just played and let the music take him where it wanted, but he’d never sat down and written sheet music outside of an academic situation. He’d written pieces at university. There were a few pieces that he’d written while he was studying and teaching Dick all those years ago, and Dick had even played a few, but it was never anything more than that. It was never meant to be anything more than that.

It was a blur of music for a while. First the drums, then the disastrous turn on the violin, then over to the trumpet because he couldn’t stand the sound of string instruments anymore. Bruce didn’t know how long it’d been since he started his self-imposed musical isolation, but one day he heard music that wasn’t his own.

It was a string instrument. His heart leapt up into his throat as he got up, bumping into the music stand and sending it clattering to the ground. The moment he made it to the door he heard the music clearer. He was definitely hearing a string instrument, but it wasn’t the one that he’d thought.

Bruce closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the door as he tried to think of what the instrument he was hearing actually was. It was definitely a bowed instrument. A double bass? No, the octave wasn’t low enough. A cello then. It wasn’t an instrument that he had a lot of practice in himself, but he knew what it sounded like.

Even though he wanted to shirk away, Bruce found himself pushing the door open and walking down the halls to find the source of the cello. Alfred didn’t play any instruments, and Bruce wasn’t close to any of the people that he knew played the cello. Certainly not someone that Alfred would let into the manor without express permission from Bruce first.

As he walked, Bruce recognized the song. It was one of the ones that he’d written. The one that Dick had performed once. There was no way that Dick would ever play a string instrument though. He was much too attached to his western concert flute and the woodwinds in general.

Bruce listened to the piece as he walked, a hand against the wall that he was pressing himself close to. It was his piece, but not… He couldn’t quite put his finger on what was different.

The notes and tempo were the same, but different. It grated on Bruce. To hear something that he’d written and not know what was different about it. How could something like that even happen? Was it because it was being performed on a cello?

Maybe. He didn’t really know.

The most surprising part was when he reached the source of the music. Not only was Alfred standing in the living room, but Dick was there as well, with a big grin on his face. Between them Bruce could see the cello. It took him a moment to see the musician behind the instrument, a 182F Knilling. American made, the shape based off of a Stradivari, definitely a cello for a sophisticated player. Which is why Bruce was so surprised to see a boy playing the cello. He looked very young. Definitely too young to be playing the instrument that he was.

Alfred turned his head towards Bruce the instant that his foot crossed the threshold into the living room. “Master Bruce, how kind of you to join us.”

“Y-” His voice cracked and Bruce had to clear his throat. It felt like he hadn’t spoken for a long time. He probably hadn’t. “Yes. It was hard to ignore.”

Dick grinned at him, pointing at the boy. “Isn’t he amazing? I feel like I was still learning the basics at his age.”

“Were you even playing at his age?” Bruce asked before he realized that it was probably an insensitive question.

“I think Dick was already your student at thirteen,” the boy finally spoke up.

Bruce looked over at him again. He’d stopped playing after Bruce had come into the room. It took a moment for him to realize that he knew this boy. Timothy Drake, hardly a boy, but a teenager, despite his young looks. Son of Jack and Janet Drake, archeologist aficionados. They had also been one of the first people to come to Bruce when he’d opened up his music studio. He’d listened to them talk about their son and his talent and how fitting it would be for Bruce to teach him. Of course, Bruce had said no. Not only because he wasn’t that familiar with the cello, but also because the Drakes could afford a much better teacher than Bruce could ever be for Timothy. He just started going back to school, hadn’t had a teaching degree or a music degree. It just wouldn’t have worked.

“What are you doing here?” Bruce didn’t have to have Dick and Alfred’s disappointing gazes on him to know that he was being short to Timothy.

“Well, Mr. Wayne, I’m here to be your student,” Timothy said. Straight to the point. Bruce could appreciate that.

“No.” That didn’t change the fact that he wasn’t going to be teaching Timothy anything. With the way the boy had been playing and the instrument he was using, it was likely that Timothy would be a better teacher to Bruce than anything else.

“Bruce!” Dick’s mouth fell open.

He turned to his first student and shrugged. “What?”

Dick stared at him before he managed to speak up again. “Just like that? You haven’t even really talked to him! You heard him play!”

“Exactly.” Bruce turned back to look at Timothy, who was keeping quiet and didn’t seem perturbed at all. “I heard him play. There’s nothing that I can teach him.”

“Perhaps young master Drake is quite proficient with the cello, but being proficient does not mean that one cannot learn anything,” Alfred said.

Bruce didn’t look at Alfred as the older man spoke. It was rude, and he knew it, but Bruce was holding Timothy’s gaze. There was just something about the boy that Bruce couldn’t pin down. Part of him wanted to go after that and see what it was, but he wasn’t that interested. Not right now. “I have other things to do.”

“Please, Mr. Wayne. If you’d just give me a chance, I can show you what I can do,” Timothy said. With any other person it might have sounded like they were pleading, but not with Timothy. If anything, the boy was more determined than before.

“I’ve already given my answer.” Bruce turned away from them and left the room. He heard Dick trying to go after him, but he was stopped by Alfred. The conversation they were having after he’d left was loud. Loud enough that Bruce could hear Dick voicing his displeasure.

That was okay. Dick had voiced his displeasure over decisions that Bruce had made before, but that hadn’t made any difference.

He could feel someone’s gaze on his back and Bruce knew that it was Timothy. He didn’t know how he exactly felt about it, but he just ignored it for now.

Instead of going back to his music room, Bruce detoured to the bathroom. He turned the sink on and washed his face. There was a lot more hair on it than he remembered. When Bruce looked up at his reflection he barely recognized himself. It’d been a long time since his hair had been this shaggy and his beard had been so long. The last time had probably been before he’d gone to Austria. Almost ten years ago now.

Now that Bruce was thinking about it, it’d been a long time since he’d spoken to anyone besides Alfred. He wondered how Verena was doing. The last they’d spoken she’d been talking to him about how her age was starting to catch up to her. She was hit her mid-sixties now.

Bruce looked at himself again. If Verena could see him now, she’d be so disappointed.

He ran his hand through his hair and left the bathroom.  
  


* * *

 

There was music just outside his window. Bruce felt ridiculous as he walked over to it and peered outside. He was reminded of the dozens of movies where a protagonist would look outside their window and find their love or salvation.

Bruce just found a teenaged boy playing the cello.

Outside of his window.

“What are you doing?” Timothy was playing that song again, his song, but not his song.

“I’m practicing,” Timothy said, looking up at Bruce and still playing. There was no hesitation or moment of readjustment. The amount of concentration Timothy had was commendable.

“Go home, Timothy.” Bruce closed the window and shut the blinds. It didn’t muffle the music. It didn’t stop Timothy from playing either, even though he’d been cut out.

His tenacity was admirable, but that didn’t change Bruce’s mind. It wasn’t ever going to change his mind.

He’d already had a tenacious student before.  
  


* * *

 

His fingers were starting to cramp a lot more often and they hurt as well. His wrist sometimes started feeling numb as well. Bruce had barely been able to hold his trumpet the other day. It’d fallen out of his hands and the horn was damaged now. He hadn’t been able to react fast enough to catch it.

It was infuriating. It kept Bruce from keeping himself busy. Not only did it stop him from playing his instruments, but it also kept him from using both his hands at the same time. He never even noticed how often he used both hands until before.

Bruce kept it from Alfred as best he could, but the older man always spotted when something was wrong with him.

“Master Bruce, would you mind handing me the bowl of fruit, please?” Alfred asked.

Bruce stared at the bowl of fruit. “You want the whole thing?”

“Yes, please,” Alfred said.

He stared at it some more. Two bananas, three apples, an orange, a pear, and a mandarin. “Which ones do you want?”

“The whole bowl, Master Bruce,” Alfred said.

Bruce could’ve grabbed the fruit one by one, but he didn’t. The bowl clattering on the ground when his grip failed him was an inevitable outcome. One that he should have seen coming and one that Alfred had likely seen coming.

The older man sighed softly and grabbed a broom that wasn’t in the spot where it usually was. It was close enough for Alfred to just reach out for it. He didn’t even have to take a step to the side to get the broom.

“I’m sorry, Alfred,” Bruce apologized as he bent down to grab the fruit.

“You’ll leave it be, Master Bruce,” Alfred said sharply. “We will go to the hospital once I’ve cleaned up.”

Another inevitable outcome.

Just like the carpal tunnel in his left hand. His median nerve had been compressed by the repetitive wrist work. Now Bruce had to wear a rigid wrist splint and go to physical therapy. The doctor hoped that the syndrome wouldn’t come back and he encouraged Bruce to keep doing the exercises he received and stop putting so much pressure on his wrists. If he kept it up, there was a chance that he’d have to have surgery.

Bruce stared out of the window as Alfred drove back to the manor. It would be at least a few weeks of wearing the splint and going to physical therapy before Bruce could go back to the doctor for reassessment. It could even take up to three months before he would be allowed to start playing any instruments again.

To say that it put a dampener on Bruce was an understatement.

What was he supposed to do without music? True, music had gotten him into this situation. Kind of. He’d been using music to get himself into this situation. It was no one’s fault but his own.

“When we return to the manor, you will wash up before the hairdresser arrives,” Alfred said.

Bruce frowned. “What?”

“It is about time that you get out of the manor, Master Bruce. I’ve arranged a show for you to go to tonight, and you must look the part.” Alfred looked at him from the rear view mirror.

“I thought I was supposed to take it easy,” Bruce argued.

“You are not to use your wrist, Master Bruce. Where you will be going, it will not be needed.” That was the end of the conversation.

Bruce was ushered into the bathroom and his hairdresser tutted at him as she tamed his hair. The whole experience felt rather chastising. As if he had done worse than sit around with his instruments.

He raised an eyebrow when he went to his bedroom and saw a suit spread out on the bed. “Alfred, what’s the meaning of this?”

“Bruce Wayne must been seen in public a few times a year. I felt like tonight’s show would be an exemplary opportunity,” Alfred said.

He knew better than to argue with Alfred at this point. There would be no stopping the older man from goading him into the suit and sending him out for the night.

“When’s the last time that you had to tie my bowtie?” Bruce asked, his head tilted back to give Alfred room to work. He couldn’t tie it by himself even if he wanted to.

“I must confess that I do not recall, Master Bruce,” Alfred said. He pulled back and tugged on the bowtie a bit, no doubt trying to get it as straight as possible. After that the older man stepped back and ran his hands over the lapels of Bruce’s suit. “You look proper.”

Bruce lifted his hand. “This makes the look.” At least his wrist splint was black as well. Hopefully this would be an event that wouldn’t require much socializing. If someone noticed his wrist splint wild stories would start going around the high society and it’d all come back to him in the form of tabloids. That was something that Bruce never liked. He tried to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible.

“You will not notice it,” Alfred assured him.

Bruce disagreed, but he wasn’t about to speak up. Alfred’s mood had lifted quite a bit since this morning. He wasn’t going to set out and ruin it right now.

“Remind me again where we’re going,” Bruce said.

Alfred shook his head as he handed Bruce his jacket. “There is no need to remind you, as I have not told you.” With that butler led the way into the garage.

It was a struggle to put his jacket on by himself, but Bruce supposed that was the point. Alfred would only help him so much. He always wanted to show Bruce what he’d done wrong as well. His obsessive playing had gotten him into this situation. Now he was going to have to deal with the consequences.

Bruce stared out of the window as Alfred drove them to the venue, trying to think of where they were going to. When they pulled up to the concert hall, he was thoroughly confused. Of all the places that Alfred could have brought him. What was so important about the concert hall tonight?

Not only that, but there was no one around. The poster on the wall said that the show would start at 6pm and it was 5:55pm. Alfred deliberately made sure that they would arrive just as the show started to avoid the crowd. Bruce smiled. Alfred was always thinking about him even when he was displeased with Bruce.

He even went so far as to go inside with Bruce. “Will you be joining me?”

Alfred handed tickets to the bailiff and took the program before Bruce could grab it himself. “Yes, Master Bruce. Come now. We don’t wish to be late.”

Their seats were to the side, away from others. They didn’t disturb anyone as they sat down just before the curtain opened. Bruce was about to start clapping, but Alfred grabbed onto his elbow. Right. Carpal tunnel. Probably not a good idea to be clapping. Bruce started patting his knee instead. He felt too awkward to sit around and not clap in any way.

From the poster he’d seen outside, Bruce knew that the show was a showcase of local talent. He was pretty sure that he’d preformed in it once before himself. Dick had when he was eleven and then that one time together with Jason.

Bruce sighed as he felt tension build up between his shoulder blades. He wanted to be on the stage and play himself. He wanted to get out of his chair and leave. He wanted so many impossible things.

There was some definite talent in the show. Bruce could see that all of the performers had been carefully selected. Between every performance Alfred would tell Bruce about them from the program that he’d gotten.

It was for the last performance that Alfred didn’t say anything.

Which was good, because Bruce might have actually walked away.

It was when the last performer came on stage that Bruce realized that going out had been part of a ruse. “Alfred,” Bruce whispered, rubbing his forehead with his right hand.

“Shush, Master Bruce. It is rude to speak.” Alfred tapped his knee with the program.

Bruce bit the inside of his lip as he stared at Timothy Drake. The boy looked as unperturbed as ever. Neat and poised as he set up the cello between his legs. He looked the same as he had the first day that he showed up at the manor. Like he was ready to face everything head on.

Timothy’s performance was, by far, the best of the evening. Technically everything, including his posture, was perfect. It was clear that Timothy had talent, but there was something missing this time. Something that had stood out to Bruce each of the times that they’d met.

There was nothing really behind the performance. Timothy didn’t make a single mistake, but something was missing.

He pondered on it through the entire piece. When it ended and Timothy received a standing ovation from the audience, Bruce saw what it was. Even now Timothy was holding himself poised. There was a faint smile on his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Bruce didn’t have to be sitting close to see it. He could tell by the way that Timothy was holding himself.

So different from before.

“Where’d it go?” Bruce asked.

“Excuse me?” Alfred turned to him with a frown.

Bruce rested his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward, never moving his eyes from Timothy. “His drive. His passion. Where’d it go?” It had been there. Bruce had seen it. He’d seen it in the way that Timothy stared him down in the living room the first time and the way Timothy sat himself outside by Bruce’s window and come back to the manor again, and again, even though Bruce kept telling him no.

“I’m not entirely sure what you mean, Master Bruce.” He knew that if he looked back at Alfred, that the older man would be smiling. Of course he knew. It was the reason why he’d brought Bruce here.

Even as the auditorium started emptying and Timothy left the stage, Bruce stayed seated. Timothy Drake was much more interesting than Bruce originally thought. There was something behind him and now Bruce needed to know. He was itching to know. It was likely in part because he couldn’t do anything himself right now, but it was also because he knew that it’d keep nagging at him if he didn’t do anything.

“Excuse me sirs. If you would please leave? The auditorium must be cleaned.” A bailiff had come to their seats.

“Of course. I apologize.” Bruce got up before Alfred could say anything.

He led the way out of the auditorium. Most of the people had already filtered out.

There were a few people that lingered, but they were all musicians with their parents or friends. All except one person.

Timothy was standing by the stage exit, holding his cello case close as he stared out at the street. He was the only person that was alone.

Bruce’s legs were already moving before he thought about it.

Timothy looked up at him when he came in close.

“The studio. Saturday at noon.” Timothy took a sharp breath and his shoulders rolled back as he looked up at Bruce. The boy’s presence suddenly changed. Instantly Bruce was reminded of the boy that sat in his living room weeks ago.

“Yes, Mr. Wayne!” The corners of Timothy’s mouth twitched. His grip on the cello case tightened.

“Do you have a ride home?” Bruce asked. The show had been over for almost half an hour now and Timothy was still waiting.

The boy nodded. “My nanny should be here any minute.”

“Okay. I’ll see you Saturday.” Bruce went back to Alfred, who was looking fondly at him. He was acting like this hadn’t been his intention at all. That Bruce was the one who willingly went to Timothy and invited him to the studio. It only happened because Alfred had orchestrated it. Nonetheless, Bruce was grateful for it. He’d never have budged if he’d been forced into it. “We’ll stay here until Timothy gets picked up.”

“Very well, Master Bruce.”

It took at least another ten minutes before the nanny showed up. Bruce couldn’t hear her speaking, but he could tell by her hunched shoulders and lowered head that she was apologizing. Timothy didn’t seem perturbed at all. He even carried his cello into the car by himself; smiling the whole time.  
  


* * *

 

Timothy was entirely different than anyone he’d ever worked with. Where Dick had talent, and Jason had the drive to learn, Timothy was what one would call a musical prodigy. He soaked up all of the information like a sponge. The boy could even listen to a piece only once or twice and play it back with little errors.

It was daunting, but refreshing in its own way.

Timothy had been almost bashful when he arrived at the studio for the first time. His eyes were constantly moving around the room and his fingers tapped every surface that they came into contact with.

Yet another side of the boy that Bruce didn’t quite understand. There were so many layers to Timothy that it was hard to nail down exactly which one was the true Timothy.

Bruce found himself sincerely hoping that it was the boy that had been so fearless in his living room.

Their first few sessions were mostly Bruce asking Timothy to demonstrate his skills. Bruce wasn’t a cello player himself, so it was impressive to see a thirteen year old playing the way that Timothy did. Before their first session Bruce sat down and dug up as much information about Timothy that he could. He’d performed in his first show at the age of five and had been performing ever since. Despite his talents, he never went outside of the United States except for a few competitions and he’d never joined an orchestra or group of any sort.

The whole situation was kind of intriguing. From what Bruce gathered, the Drakes were more than happy for Timothy to pursue a serious musical career, but Timothy just wanted to play his cello. Of course, this was all speculation until he actually spoke to Timothy about it.

“Mister Wayne?”

Bruce looked over the sheet music at Timothy. “Yes?”

“Would you mind if I played something else?” Timothy asked.

He wouldn’t say no to the first straight out request that Timothy was asking for, but Bruce was a curious person. “Why? Is Kodály not challenging enough?”

This was the kind of moment that Bruce had been waiting for. Was Timothy just going to crumble under his scrutiny or would he push back?

Timothy’s eyes lowered and Bruce was immediately disappointed. “It isn’t that it isn’t challenging.”

“Then what is it?” Bruce asked.

“Classical composers are great and all, but I like playing other things too,” Timothy said.

Things were starting to look up. Bruce shifted in his chair and sat up straight. “Like what?”

“Like John Williams, or Hans Zimmer, or Judd Greenstein, or Philip Glass.” Timothy was looking right at Bruce now.

“Why do you want to play pieces by them?” Bruce asked.

Timothy looked at his cello. “People always wants to hear certain things, but that’s not always what I want to play. There’s nothing bad about playing lesser known composers or songs composed for movies.”

Bruce could definitely agree with Timothy on that. “Go ahead then, Timothy.”

“Tim,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“You can call me Tim. Only my parents call me Timothy,” Tim told Bruce.

There was no harm in calling the boy Tim. “Only if you call me Bruce.”

Tim nodded and immediately lifted his bow again. The corners of his lips were turned up as he started playing a song that Bruce knew he’d heard before, but didn’t know from where. Probably from one of the movies that Tim was talking about.

The energy in the room instantly changed. Tim was sitting up properly, but he wasn’t holding himself as stiffly anymore. He was even humming along with the song as he played. Bruce found himself tapping his foot along with the tune. It was catchy. Certainly a lot more uplifting than Kodály had been.  
  


* * *

 

“Why do you play the cello?” Bruce asked one day as Tim was packing up his instrument. Mrs. Mac would be by to pick the boy up in a bit, and, knowing her, she’d be at least ten minutes late. There was enough time for them to talk.

“What do you mean?” Tim asked. He ran his hand over the body of the instrument before he closed the case.

“Why do you play? You have obvious talent, but you don’t seem to have any further aspirations other than just playing,” Bruce said.

The clips snapped shut a little louder than usual. Tim’s shoulders were pulled back and he didn’t look at Bruce as he answered. “What’s wrong with just playing?”

With how defensive Tim was being, Bruce was sure that this was a conversation that the boy had had a lot before. Undoubtedly with his parents. Over the past few months Bruce had been able to get a little more information out of Tim, but not a lot. Definitely never anything this personal before either. They mostly talked about Tim and his parents. Even then, it was never really in depth. Tim was cagey like that.

“I never meant to insinuate that there was anything wrong with that.” The look that Tim sent over his shoulder made Bruce freeze for a moment. His eyes were narrowed and his lips were pursed. Bruce had seen that look often enough. On Dick it was when he was suppressing his anger; on Jason it was when he was lying. He still didn’t know Tim well enough to know what it meant.

In an instant Tim’s features relaxed. All of the tension that had built up in him went away, just like that. “Sometimes I think it was a mistake that I ever showed interest in a musical instrument.”

The words were surprisingly flat for the implication that Tim was giving Bruce. “How so.”

Tim shrugged, picking up his cello case and making his way to the entrance of the studio. “I can play, but I can’t play.”

“Are your parents forcing you to keep playing, Tim?” Bruce hated to ask it. The Drakes were nice people, but he’d seen how they treated Tim. They were proud of their son, there was no doubt in Bruce’s mind of that. It was just that sometimes they seemed like they were trying to push Tim in certain directions. Jack’s attempts were definitely more blatant, but Janet tended to make a few snide remarks. One wouldn’t even notice what she was saying unless they really knew Tim, and Bruce had the feeling that not a lot of people did.

“No one’s forcing me to do anything,” Tim mumbled. He quickly pushed open the door when a car pulled up to the curb. “I’ll see you next time.”

He was gone before Bruce could say anything else. Bruce rubbed the back of his neck as he watched Tim get into the car. Sometimes things were a lot easier with Tim, but there were times like this that Tim was, hands down, the most troublesome student that he’d ever had.

The next time that he saw Tim, it was just after another local performance. Bruce had gone to the show together with Dick and he saw that Jack and Janet were back. After the show they’d gone backstage to talk to Tim. Dick had been very excited and spoke a lot because of it and Tim and Jack went along with it. However, Janet stood to the side and watched them all with her arms crossed over her chest.

He’d seen the shuttered look on Tim’s face when she said that it was time to go.

That look was still present when they sat down in the studio. Jack had dropped Tim off today. He’d even asked if Tim wanted him to stay, but the boy had waved him off. 

Bruce tossed the sheet music aside, making Tim stare at him in shock. “Let’s not play something like this today. How about you just play. No sheet music, no movie music, or anything.”

“How do you want me to play?” Tim asked slowly. Bruce didn’t blame him for sounding skeptical.

“Just play.” He pulled a chair over and turned it around so he could straddle it backwards. “Don’t think. Just let your inspiration take you places.”

Tim’s grip on his bow was so tight that his knuckles were white. “So you want me to just play?”

“Yes, Tim. Please just play. That’s all I’d like for you to do,” Bruce said.

It was a definite gamble, but Bruce felt like Tim needed this. He was always talking about the pieces that he had to play and the pieces that he preferred to play, but he never just played. He said that he wanted to just play the cello, so Bruce was giving him the chance to.

It was up to Tim what he wanted to do with the opportunity.

Tim obviously didn’t know what to do. He was switching between looking at Bruce, looking at his cello, moving his fingers onto the strings and taking them away again. Bruce decided not to say anything. He’d let Tim have this chance. He wasn’t going to interfere or speak at all. Encouragement had already been given. Tim just needed to take the last step and actually play.

In Bruce’s mind, there was nothing better than just playing. Let your body express how it was feeling without thinking about it. Some people resorted to physical exercise, others resorted to alcohol, and, nowadays, Bruce resorted to throwing himself into music.

The wrist splint was still on as a precaution. Bruce’s doctor had warned him that pushing himself would likely cause the carpal tunnel to come back. He always put it on when he came to the studio with Tim. Bruce knew that otherwise he’d want to play along with the boy. Like now. Bruce wanted to show Tim how to let go, but he wouldn’t. This was something that was all for Tim.

Half an hour almost passed before Tim finally played a note. He plucked the D string first and the note rang through the room. Another minute passed before he plucked the C string.

Bruce crossed his arms over the back of the chair and closed his eyes as Tim plucked a few more strings and soon transitioned to using his bow.

It started out slow, like Tim was still trying to figure out what he was doing. It was flighty and a little jerky, but it didn’t take long for the procession of notes to get smoother and flow together.

Music was such a fantastic medium for expressing one’s self. Bruce held his breath at a few moments as Tim played, feeling the raw emotion behind it. Sometimes it made him want to laugh, other moments made his chest feel tight. There were so many dips and rises that it jerked him around at times.

Then, just as suddenly as Tim started playing, it stopped. Bruce wondered if Tim had lost his medium again when something clattered against the floor.

He opened his eyes and saw Tim leaning against his cello, the bow on the floor. Bruce was going to ask what was wrong when he saw Tim’s shoulders jolting slightly. A soft sigh slipped from his lips as he got up and walked over to Tim. He pulled the cello away, setting it down, before he pulled Tim up and wrapped his arms around him.

Almost instantly, Tim’s arms wrapped around him and squeezed tightly. Much tighter than Bruce ever thought he’d be possible.

This was the moment when people would often say that everything was going to be okay, but Bruce knew that empty platitudes like that never helped. Instead he just held Tim. He didn’t say anything as the boy sniffled and hid his face against Bruce’s shirt.

“I’m sorry,” Tim mumbled after a while.

“What are you sorry for? I think you played beautifully,” Bruce said.

Tim looked up at him, his eyes rimmed red and a dark flush on his cheeks. “You think so?”

“I think you did. Do you think you did?” He asked.

“Y-yeah…” Tim cleared his throat. “I liked it.”

“Good. Next time, just play. Okay?”

“I will.”  
  


* * *

 

“Holy crap! This place is freaking swanky!”

Bruce’s fingers froze, the A note that he was playing ringing through the room as the finger on the key kept down on it. What in the world? That wasn’t a voice that he recognized at all.

“Hey, keep it down. Bru- Mr. Wayne is here.” That was very obviously Tim’s voice. Now the question was who was the young woman he’d brought with him and why?

Bruce pulled away from the piano and walked over to the foyer of the studio.

Tim, sans cello, was standing next to a blonde teenager, who had a guitar case strapped on her back. It was a black case that had seen better days. It was scuffed and had chips out of it and was covered in stickers. Bruce was pretty sure that the strap was being held in place by duct tape.

“Sweet. Is this a real harp?” The young woman walked over to the harp, holding her hand out.

“There’s obviously a sign on it that says ‘don’t touch’,” Bruce said, slipping his hands into his pant pockets.

Tim and the young woman both stiffened and she practically leapt away from the harp. Bruce was just happy that she’d leapt back instead of forwards. Maybe keeping the harp in the foyer had been a bad idea. He hadn’t moved it in years though.

“Holy shit! Way to give a girl a heart attack,” she said.

Tim cleared his throat and sent Bruce an apologetic look. “Sorry Bruce. We were in the area and I know that Dick is coming here soon, so I knew that you’d be here and Steph wanted to see, but we were just going to quickly go in and out, you don’t have to worry, we’ll be gone soon.”

Bruce lifted a hand to stop Tim from losing his breath. “Don’t worry about it.” He would’ve preferred a heads up, but it really wasn’t a problem. “Why don’t you properly introduce me to your friend?” He asked.

The young woman practically bounded forward with her hand out. “The name’s Stephanie Brown!”

“Pleasure. Bruce Wayne.”

“So Tim Tam over here talks about you constantly and when I found out that we were in the area, I made him bring me here,” Stephanie said.

Bruce raised an eyebrow at Tim. “Oh really?”

Tim ducked his head. “She says a lot of things.”

“Hey, watch your mouth, you classical trained bimbo!” Stephanie turned towards Tim, almost hitting Bruce with her guitar case.

Bimbo? Bruce mouthed the word to Tim, who just shrugged.

“Look, we can keep going now. You’ve seen the studio and Bruce is going to have a session soon,” Tim said. He pointed at the exit over his shoulder.

Stephanie huffed. “Fine. But I’ll be back!”

And she did come back.

A lot.

She practically always came along with Tim after that. Stephanie was almost like Tim’s personal shadow.

At first Bruce had been worried that her presence would disrupt things, but, despite his first impression, Stephanie was actually very attentive. She always sat quietly as Tim and Bruce played; always let the two of them discuss without butting in.

She was much more respectful than Bruce first thought.

Stephanie was a year older than Tim, at the age of sixteen. She’d started playing guitar at the age of eight when her mother purchased an old guitar from a garage sale and never had any formal lessons. Both of the teenagers kept saying how talented she was, but Bruce didn’t know. Stephanie always had her guitar case with her when she came over, but she never pulled it out.

More than once Bruce caught her looking at the guitar that he had in his studio. The one that he barely ever used. He was alright with the guitar, but string instruments were just never really his thing. There was something about them that he just didn’t like.

It was ironic that two of his students and his current student’s best friend, were all string instrumentalists.

Maybe it would be a good idea for Bruce to invest more of his energy in string instruments after all. Just to keep up with everyone.

“I saw this thing on the internet that I want to try.” Stephanie came in later than Tim for once. They were in the middle of discussing a piece that Tim was going to be playing when she walked in and spoke.

“Should I be worried?” Tim asked.

Stephanie shook her hand and sat down in her chair – because she came over often enough that there was a chair always set out for her – and pulled her guitar out of its case.

It was the first time that Bruce ever saw her instrument. It looked much like her case in that it had various stickers on the body, but it was a well-cared for guitar. The strings were recently replaced as well.

“Don’t be worried. I was perusing the internet and found duets for guitars and cellos. I want to try it! We’ve never really played together,” Stephanie said with a grin.

Tim looked at Bruce as if he needed to ask permission to play with Stephanie. “If that’s what you’d like to do, go ahead.”

That night, when Bruce got back to the manor, he turned his computer on and started searching for cello and guitars duets. There were a lot more than he expected and he really enjoyed them. Now it was just a question of how Stephanie and Tim sounded together. Bruce knew Tim’s skills very well, but he knew next to nothing about Stephanie, so he made sure to get an assortment of duets for them to try out.

He had no doubt that Stephanie and Tim would both be bringing over their own music though. They were both the type to do the research on something that they wanted to try out.

Bruce arrived early at the studio to set everything up for the day. He wouldn’t ever tell them, but he was excited to see what would come out of this as well.

They came in together. Tim held a folder under his arm and Stephanie was waving around a stack of papers.

“You’re going to like what I found!” She almost whacked Tim in the face with the pages, but he leaned back just in time.

“I never doubted you,” Tim reassured her. He smiled at Bruce as he set the folder down and pulled out his cello.

Stephanie put her pages on top of Tim’s folder. “Sure you didn’t.” She plopped down on her chair and pulled out her guitar. The first thing that she did was pull hair back into a ponytail. After that she started playing the Mixolydian mode. She started off slow and, as her hand loosened, started playing faster and faster. Stephanie wasn’t even looking at her guitar as she played.

Bruce was very impressed.

They started out simple, as Stephanie and Tim had never played together before. They needed to get a feel for each other before Bruce would let them play together. There were more than a few mishaps at the start and both teenagers snapped at each other a few times, but they settled down very quickly.

Soon Bruce could just tell them what to play and they were able to go off on each other. It was like they were natural partners.

“Good. We’ll move onto sheet music,” Bruce said when he thought that they were in-sync enough.

He set everything up for them and went through the music with them, but after that it was up to Stephanie and Tim to play.

For their first time playing together, it was very impressive. Sometimes Stephanie wasn’t able to keep up with Tim, but there were also enough times that he wasn’t able to keep up with her.

It even got to the point where Bruce entertained the thought of them actually playing in front of an audience.

Over the next few weeks that was all that they did. Stephanie and Tim would come to the studio on Saturday mornings and stay until later in the afternoon. They mostly played together, but there was a lot of discussions as well. Bruce watched them work together and they really helped each other. Stephanie followed Tim’s lead and became more refined and Tim was able to loosen up a bit more.

The studio was always filled with smiles and laughter now.

Bruce was happy to have it back.

One day he suggested doing a call with Verena. It’s what he’d done with Dick and Jason when they worked together to play a piece. Tim had already played for her as well.

“I know what to play,” Stephanie immediately said.

She’d pulled Tim to the side and they started practicing outside of the studio as well. Bruce set up an appointment with Verena and set up the video call for them.

“Guten abend, Verena,” Bruce said when she came on the screen.

Verena’s eyes were narrowed as she tried to adjust her camera so it wasn’t pointed at the ceiling. “Guten tag, Bruce. How are you?”

Her English had gotten a lot better over the years. They still spoke primarily in German, but Verena did make an effort to speak English with him sometimes.

“I’m well, thank you. How are you?” He asked.

She put on her glasses. “Better. No cough anymore.”

Earlier in the year Verena had a scare with pneumonia. Bruce almost flew out to Austria to go visit her, but she’d insisted that it wasn’t needed.

“We’re here!” Stephanie called out. Bruce poked his head out of the room and smiled when he saw the two teenagers. They’d both gotten dressed up for today. He’d told them it wasn’t necessary, but Stephanie was wearing a purple dress and Tim had a button up with slacks. It wasn’t too fancy, but it looked very proper.

“Good, Verena’s already on the call.”

Tim came over and started speaking with Verena, but Stephanie held back a little. She didn’t come into the room and stared at the laptop.

“What’s the matter?” Bruce asked, walking over to her.

She gulped and wiped her hands off on her dress. “I’ve played for people before. A lot. I play in public. I shouldn’t be nervous.”

“But you are.” He wasn’t going to tell her to not be nervous, because that would only make her more insecure about how she was feeling. That was something that he’d learned over his many years of teaching.

“I am. I really am.” Stephanie let out a shaky breath.

Bruce reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Hey, look at me.” He squeezed her shoulder when she pulled her eyes away from the laptop to look at him. “It’s okay to be nervous, but I know that you’re going to do your best.”

“Of course I am!” Stephanie said. “It’s just that… This is your teacher.”

He knew how all of his students looked up to Verena. The feeling was mutual for him. Even after all of these years, Bruce was still nervous whenever he played for her or asked her for advice.

“I believe in you.”

Stephanie held his gaze for a few moments before she squared her shoulders and nodded.

He introduced Stephanie and Verena before letting the teenagers set up.

Bruce had to cover his mouth to muffle a chuckle when Stephanie and Tim bowed to the camera before they sat down. They were taking this much more seriously than they had to, but Bruce thought that it was pretty endearing. At the last minute he remembered that Alfred had asked him to record their performance, and he quickly grabbed his phone as Stephanie and Tim both started plucking at their strings.

He immediately recognized the song. They played a longer version of the intro, Tim switching over to his bow.

Then Stephanie started singing.

“Blackbird singing in the dead of night. Take these broken wings and learn to fly,” she sang.

Bruce hadn’t expected Stephanie to start singing. He didn’t even know that she could sing. Just another trick that she had up her sleeve. Stephanie kept finding ways to keep impressing Bruce over and over.

They smiled at each other as they played. Stephanie winked at Tim, still playing her guitar and singing.

There was a chemistry between the two of them. It was very captivating and Bruce was completely pulled into the song.

They’d barely finished the last note before Bruce heard Verena clapping. “Bravo! Sehr gut, bravo!”

Bruce set his phone away and started clapping as well. He even went so far as to whistle.

“Bruce!” Stephanie’s face got beet red and she threw a pick at him.

He laughed as he easily ducked under the pick. Tim started laughing as well and it didn’t take long for Stephanie to join them.  
  


* * *

 

The studio had never been so loud before.

That’s what Bruce got when he had his three students in at the same time. They wanted a ‘jam session’ and he’d been so nice to let them use his studio. Dick and Stephanie could both be very loud and Tim tended to goad them on instead of try to hold them back.

All in all it was a pretty volatile mix.

Bruce wouldn’t want it any other way.

He was in his office, finishing up on a few details for the interior designer that he was having come in when his personal cell phone started ringing. He picked it up with looking at the number. Only certain people had his personal number, so he wasn’t expecting there to be anything on the other end of the line that he didn’t want. “Bruce speaking.”

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other side of the line.

His brows furrowed. What a weird reaction. Bruce pulled his phone away from his ear to look at the number. It was unknown.

“Bruce! The pizza is here!” Stephanie called out.

Bruce shook his head. This was sounding more like a sleepover than anything else. “The money’s on the counter.”

“I’ve got it!” Tim shouted.

“I’ve got the door! Let’s go Timmy and Stephy!” Dick’s feet pounded loudly against the floor. There was a curse mixed in the pounding as well. Dick was probably running around in just his socks.

These kids were going to be the death of him. Although Bruce couldn’t really call them kids anymore. Dick was already in his twenties and Stephanie was getting close to eighteen and Tim was only a year younger than her. Now wasn’t the time to think about that. Bruce didn’t want to think about what that meant for his age.

Now that that was dealt with, he looked back at his phone. The call was still on. “Hello?” Bruce held the phone up to his ear again.

“Sorry,” a low voice said before the call dropped.

That was weird. Bruce looked at his phone against and brought up the call log. It was definitely an unknown number and he couldn’t get more information. He couldn’t even call it back to find out who’d called him.

Hopefully he wasn’t going to get more calls like that. Bruce had gone through a lot of effort to keep his personal number a secret.

“What the hell is this?” Stephanie asked.

“It’s Hawaiian pizza,” Tim said.

“Gross! You’re disgusting, Timothy Jackson Drake!”

Dick stood in the doorway of his office. “Let’s go eat, Bruce.”

“It’s not disgusting!”

“Heathen! You’re a heathen! Why do I hang out with you?”

Bruce smiled. “I’ll be right there.”


	4. Cassandra and Damian

Somewhere along the way Stephanie became his student as well. Since he was spending much more time at the studio again, she took to dropping by a lot.

Sometimes she came with Tim, but most of the time Stephanie came alone now.

Once she’d asked him to play with her and he’d gone to the piano, but she’d handed him the guitar instead. “Play this!” She told him.

It was really hard to say no to Stephanie Brown.

Even when you were Bruce Wayne and didn’t really know much about the guitar. He’d entertained trying to learn – even though he’d failed years ago – but never got around to it.

That was how the student became the teacher. It was a little awkward because, while she knew how to play the guitar, Stephanie didn’t really know how to teach. She helped Bruce refresh his memory on the scales, but the rest was all done with the two of them sitting in front of his laptop with video lessons on the internet.

Giving in once had been a mistake.

One day Bruce walked into the studio and realized that he had purple chairs in the foyer.

Eggplant purple. Stephanie’s voice rang through his head.

Just like Tim, she had wormed her way into his life and the way it looked, she wasn’t ever going to leave.

Bruce was okay with that, but he could’ve done with a little more warning.

Just like he could’ve done with a little more warning when Stephanie showed up one day with a friend in tow.

“This is Cassandra Cain. Cass for short. She doesn’t talk much, but she’s here to play the drums,” Stephanie said.

The young woman next to Stephanie was a little shorter than her and practically the opposite in features with her dark hair and dark brown eyes. It certainly stood out against Stephanie’s blonde hair and blue eyes.

Then again, Stephanie just stood out period. She’d once, very helpfully, pointed out that all of his students before her had black hair and blue eyes. She’d even shown up with a black wig once and claimed that she finally fit in with the gang.

“She’s here to play the drums?” Bruce asked. It was a very sudden request.

“Yup!” Stephanie chirped. “I’ll show her where they are!” She grabbed Cassandra’s hand and pulled the other young woman away.

Bruce stared at their backs and rubbed his forehead. When had he signed up for this? He remembered the days when people would line up in front of the studio to get accepted as his student. Now they were all just walking in. How had his life changed so much?

He walked to the rooms that has his drums. It was the room with the most soundproofing, because he liked to play them and didn’t want to interrupt anyone else in the studio.

“These are the sticks.” Stephanie handed Cassandra the drumsticks and placed her hands on her hips. “There! You’re close to being ready! I’m going to go to the bathroom and you two can get to know each other.” She waved at Bruce as she walked by.

They stared at each other. Bruce had his hands in his pockets and Cassandra’s hands were still lifted with a drumstick in each hand.

There was something about the way that Cassandra looked at him that was familiar to Bruce. Something that reminded him of the world trip that he went on and the stop that he’d had in the Middle East. The acquaintances that he’d made there, but never reconnected with because he’d found music again.

“Hello,” Bruce said. He might as well be the first one to speak. Stephanie did say that Cass wasn’t much of a talker.

“H-hello,” Cassandra replied. Her voice was soft, almost as if she was afraid to speak.

He decided to take a seat in the chair by the door. Bruce knew that he’d look more disarming this way. It felt like the right way to approach this. “You want to play the drums?” He asked.

 Cassandra eyed him closely as he moved. She stayed silent for a minute too. “Learn.”

“Excuse me?”

“Learn. Not play,” she said.

Already she had the kind of attitude that Bruce appreciated. Tenacious, without being obtrusive about it.

He had no idea where Stephanie and Cassandra had met and he wasn’t going to ask either. “You can call me Bruce.”

She nodded. “Cass.”

Cass was a completely different kind of student. Firstly, she seemed to respond to a more proactive way of teaching a lot more than anyone else he’d taught so far. She was able to get down the basics after a while. First he tried telling her what to do, but Bruce soon discovered that she was a much more visual kind of learner. She was very good at mimicking what he did and work off of that.

Sometimes it was like she was watching his body move instead of listen to what he was saying.

It was actually a treat to be teaching differently for once. Not only did it help Cass, but it also helped Bruce. Since she was mimicking what he did, he was able to spot points of improvement for her, but also for himself.

Bruce never knew how outward his elbows faced while he played the drums until Cass started copying the way that he played.

They bounced off of each other in that way.

Cass really wasn’t much of a talker, just like Stephanie had said. While she did listen to Bruce outside of their lessons, it was sometimes a problem for her to reply. Stephanie once whispered to him that Cass never learned how to talk because of her – in Stephanie’s words – douchebag father. So Bruce started talking to her so she could reply by shaking or nodding her head. He was encouraged by Stephanie to try and get Cass to talk, but there was only so much that Cass was able to take in one day. It was almost like she was hit with an overload of words. Not only did she have to listen and make sense of what Bruce was saying, but she had to bring it all together in her head and come up with a response.

Bruce knew that learning a language was hard enough, but having to learn to speak a language after having been practically mute growing up? He had no idea how Cass did it. She was long passed the prime age for learning languages, but she tried very hard.

Just because Cass didn’t always know what to say, didn’t mean that Bruce didn’t understand her. It was the drums that did the talking for her most of the time that they were together. Bruce let her play what she wanted.

It wasn’t hard to know what kind of a day she was having. All Bruce had to do was listen to how she was playing the drums. There were a lot of rough days. Days where all she did was just play the drums, much like Bruce himself had done a couple of years back, before Tim had come into the picture. Some days she would use the use the cymbals, and others Cass would use the bass drum.

Even though Cass didn’t speak a lot, she was very expressive when the others were around. She gravitated towards Dick and Stephanie and how extroverted they were, but Bruce saw that she liked to tuck herself away with Tim as well.

Sometimes Dick and Stephanie were just too loud. Even for a drum player.

Bruce could definitely relate to that.

He liked to sit back and watch all of them together, as they tried to make a quartet with their instruments. Often it was just one big mess, but Bruce found that he didn’t want it any other way. It still surprised him how his circle had grown.

How it had gone from just Dick, and then mainly just Jason, and now there were four people who actively came to the studio.

Bruce never told them, but he liked to think that they were a mismatched family. They’d all grown so close and were growing together. Even Bruce was growing with them. He wondered what else would come of it.  
  


* * *

 

A blast from the past showed up at the studio door one day.

One minute Bruce was walking to the door to say hello to Dick – who was coming over to practice a duet with Tim today – and the next he froze in the foyer.

The woman standing just inside the entrance hadn’t changed much in the years that Bruce had last seen her. Before Austria. Before he finally found who he really was. He hadn’t really been keeping track. Everything down to the way she held herself, her clothing style and her hair was the same. It was almost as if she’d barely aged.

(Bruce had definitely aged. Alfred liked pointing out to him that grey hairs were starting to appear at his temples.)

“Talia.” He didn’t know why she was here. Bruce was surprised to see her period. There hadn’t been a word from her in all these years and now she was just standing in the foyer of his music studio, looking around like she was scrutinizing the space.

“Bruce, beloved. It’s been too long,” Talia said. Her lip curled back slightly as she looked at the chairs.

Bruce nodded. “More than ten years.”

“Nearing on thirteen, to be exact.” Her gaze shifted over to him. Her eyes were still almost bright green, so bright that Bruce couldn’t believe that they were real.

“What brings you here?” Bruce asked.

A boy stepped out from behind Talia. Bruce hadn’t noticed him at all. “Hello father.”

A disbelieving chuckle slipped from his lips. After all this time Talia was going to show up with some boy and claim that he was the father? This wasn’t the first time that a woman had done this. Bruce knew how to deal with this.

Except…

Bruce knew the set of the boy’s mouth. It was one that he saw in the mirror. His jawline was familiar as well. The shape of his ears was just like Martha’s, slightly pointed at the top of the shell.

That still didn’t mean anything.

“Talia… Can we talk?” The boy stepped forward along with his mother. “Alone.”

Talia patted the boy on the shoulder, which stopped him in his tracks. She followed Bruce to his office alone and he closed the door. “You seem befuddled.”

“Befuddled?” Bruce chuckled again as he started pacing behind his desk. He wanted to put room between himself and Talia. “What do you want Talia?” There had to be a reason why she was just showing up like this.

“Why do you think I want something?” She asked.

“Of course you want something. After all this time, you wouldn’t just show up without reason.” Bruce remembered what it was like with Talia, and her father. They never did anything without first planning it out carefully. That was what they were about; it was how they operated.

“Our son wanted to meet his father. That should be reason enough.” Talia picked up a picture frame on Bruce’s desk. It had been taken earlier in the year after Stephanie’s first official performance alongside Tim. They were all bunched up together, smiles all around, and Stephanie holding a bouquet of purple roses close.

“You claim that he’s my son,” Bruce said. The similarities that he saw didn’t matter at this point. Talia wasn’t just allowed to dump this on him. Dump a boy on him.

She set the photo facedown onto the table. “He is. Trust me, if I’d had my way, Damian wouldn’t be here.”

Damian. So that was the boy’s name. His so-called son. The way that Talia was talking almost made it seem like this was out of her hands. Was it because Damian wanted to meet him or did Ra’s have his hand in this? Bruce was sure that Talia’s words were true. She didn’t look pleased to be here.

“He’s met me. What now?” Bruce asked.

Before Talia could answer, they heard a shout, followed by a scream. Bruce immediately brushed past Talia. It was Tim that was screaming. What was Damian doing to him? Several different scenarios popped in Bruce’s head as he ran to the room where Tim was practicing, waiting for Dick. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

When he made it to the room, Bruce grabbed Damian by the back of his shirt and pulled him away from Tim. “What’s the meaning of this?”

The boy turned and looked up at him, his expression completely serious as he spoke. “I’m here now. You don’t need him anymore. I’m your son.”

Rage bubbled up in Bruce’s gut. Rage that he hadn’t felt in so long. The last time that he’d felt it was when he was with Talia and Ra’s last and he wanted to act on it so badly.

That still didn’t change the fact that Damian was just a boy. No doubt his actions were fueled on by Talia. He’d been raised by her after all, and she’d made it blatant how displeased she was about their situation. Maybe this was in retaliation against Bruce for never coming back when he said that he would. Why was she bringing Damian now and why was he sprouting out words like that? It reeked Ra’s and it was disgusting.

Bruce just barely kept himself from pushing Damian aside. Instead he just let his shirt go and walked straight to Tim. Tim, who was sitting on the ground clutching his broken bow to his chest. He had to take a deep breath as he knelt down next to Tim. Bruce couldn’t show how he really felt. He didn’t matter at this moment. “Tim, are you okay?”

“He broke it! I wasn’t even doing anything. The little demon broke it!” Tim hissed out.

“I know. It’s okay. I’ll make sure that it gets fixed.” Getting a new bow would be a better idea, with the way the wood had broken, but it meant something to Tim. It meant something to all of them.

“Hey, what’s with the gathering?” Dick really had the best timing. Bruce was glad that he was here; mainly because he was better with Tim than Bruce was.

He stood up, pulling Tim up along with him. “Dick, can you take Tim to your apartment? Maybe make a detour to the café?”

Dick had questions. So many of them. Bruce could set it just from the look on his face and he shook his head before Dick could get anything out. Thank goodness Dick read the situation just right. He gave Talia and Damian a confused look as he went to Tim. “Timmy, let’s go to my place, okay?”

“My office,” Bruce said. By the way Damian inhaled, he could see that he was going to argue. “Now!” He snapped.

Luckily some kind of training had gotten through to Damian, because he stiffened up and nodded before he turned and followed his mother. This was horrible and not something that Bruce needed in his life right now. How was he supposed to deal with this?

He made sure to pat both Dick and Tim on the shoulder before he followed after Talia and Damian. “I’ll call you later, Dick.”

“You’d better.” Dick clearly wanted an explanation, and he would get it – as soon as Bruce knew what was going on himself.

Talia had her hands on Damian’s shoulders when Bruce came into the office. “You must not show your hand so soon, my son.”

“Show what? The fact that he could’ve broken Tim’s arm for no reason at all?” Bruce crossed his arms over his chest. The reinforced wood had been snapped cleanly. If Damian had gotten hold of Tim’s arm instead of the bow, things could’ve ended very badly.

“There is a reason, father,” Damian said.

“Don’t. Just don’t, right now.” Bruce was so close to snapping. He didn’t need to be provoked any more.

“I’ll allow the two of you to speak on the way home.” Talia pulled away from Damian. “His belongings have already been brought to your estate.”

Just great. “How long is he staying?”

“Permanently.” Talia’s smile didn’t reach her eyes as she left the room. She didn’t even say goodbye to her son.

For the first time in a long time, Bruce felt like holing himself up in the liquor cabinet. He supposed that Talia always brought out conflicting feelings out of him.

He scrubbed a hand over his face and ran it through his hair as he looked at Damian. The boy was standing with a straight back. He was just standing there like he hadn’t just assaulted someone else for a bullshit reason. Still, he was just a kid. “Let’s go.” Bruce pointed a finger at him. “I don’t want to hear a word out of you.”

The ride back to the manor was tense. Bruce squeezed the steering wheel as he drove back. He’d made a point of telling Damian to sit in the back seat. Right now he didn’t want to have the boy in direct vision. There was just so much bubbling inside of him and Bruce didn’t want to just let it loose at Damian, no matter what he’d done.

Bruce stormed inside, not even waiting for Damian to follow behind him, when they got back home. Alfred was already waiting for him. There were new shoes on the rack by the door and jackets hanging in the closet.

“They’ve already been here?”

Alfred nodded. “I’ve taken the liberty of setting up the guest bedroom on the east wing for the young master.”

Damian came up behind him, still staying silent. “Follow me,” Bruce said. He led Damian through the manor to his new room. “This is your room. You’re going to stay here until I tell you that you can leave.”

“But father-”

Bruce held up a finger. “No buts, or so help me.” He left the door open for now.

Talia had thought of everything. When he came back downstairs Alfred handed him a folder. A birth certificate and a paternity test. Bruce didn’t even want to know how Talia managed to get his DNA, but he had no doubt that she had her ways. So Damian really was his son. He had a twelve year old son that he never knew about and now Bruce was suddenly expected to raise him. It wasn’t like he hadn’t ever dealt with boys at that age. Dick and Jason were both twelve when they were his students and Tim had been thirteen. There wasn’t much difference there. The biggest difference was that Bruce knew nothing about Damian or how he’d been raised, but he had a pretty good idea. He could see Ra’s’ hand in the way that Damian was acting. It was worrying.

Bruce couldn’t help himself. He went up to his study and poured himself a drink. After he’d finished the glass, he decided to forgo it completely and just grabbed the bottle. Bruce took a few sips and grimaced. He still needed to call Dick and see how Tim was doing. The younger man was probably really shook.

He went to his desk phone and punched in Dick’s number. Dick picked up after the first ring. “Bruce?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” he said.

“Give me a second.” Bruce listened as Dick walked and closed a door behind him. Maybe he had gone into the bedroom or onto the balcony for some privacy. “What the hell happened?”

“So I have a son.” It was a weak way of opening up the conversation.

“Okay. That still doesn’t answer my question.”

It really didn’t. Bruce pressed the bottle against his forehead, relishing in the cold as he started from the beginning. He’d never told anyone besides Alfred what his travels had been like. He’d never even really gone into detail about Ra’s and Talia either. Of course, Bruce omitted a few details when he told Dick about how he’d met them and how he fell in love with Talia. He also told Dick what they were like.

Bruce really couldn’t remember the last time that he’d talked for so long. The weight leaving his shoulders was tangible as well. People always said that talking about things helped, but Bruce had never really believed it until now. Then again, this wasn’t really something that he could get out of his system by playing music.

“So they’re some kind of cult?” Dick sounded confused, and he had every right to be.

“A cult isn’t the right word,” Bruce said. The bottle was warming up against his forehead. It didn’t feel good anymore, so he set it down.

“Fine. Whatever, it’s somewhere along that line.” Dick sighed. “It sucks that you didn’t know about him before, but don’t you think you have to step up now?”

“I don’t think I like the sound of this.”

He could hear Dick grinding his teeth. “Look, this kid has clearly been led to believe he’s supposed to be the next king of the world or something. He’s probably never had a normal childhood. He’s just acting the way that he was taught to. Now’s your chance to show him differently. You have an opportunity to change his life for the better.”

Bruce hated it when Dick made sense. There was never room to argue against him. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Find something that you have in common that isn’t his family. Bond with him, Bruce. We both know you’re capable of that,” Dick said.

Bruce didn’t sleep that night. He lay in bed and started up at the ceiling. Thirty feet down the hall was Damian’s bedroom, his son’s bedroom. He’d checked on the boy before he’d gone to his own room and he’d already been asleep. Right in the middle of the bed and completely straight with his hands on his stomach. It made an eerie image and Bruce had left as silently as he could. Damian was probably a light sleeper.

Dick told him that he needed to find a way to bond with Damian. How was he supposed to though? How could Bruce give him a chance when he saw how the boy acted around Tim? He knew that it was part of the way that Damian was raised, and he couldn’t blame Damian for that, but it was hard. How was he even supposed to trust Damian when he’d already shown how ruthless he could be?

And why? Just because he was Bruce’s son? Just thinking about it made Bruce’s head hurt, and it wasn’t because he’d had half a bottle of whiskey.

For the first few days, Bruce just decided to avoid Damian as he tried to think up of a plan. He did stay in the house though, to keep an eye on Damian. It was strange to spy on his son, but Bruce felt like he had to. He knew nothing about Damian at all besides his birthdate.

Damian was clearly aware that Bruce was watching him from afar and he’d been called out once or twice, but neither of them did anything about it.

Bruce had also asked Alfred to keep an eye on the boy as well. Alfred actually rolled his eyes at the request, but he did it anyways. He always gave a short report at night when he brought Bruce’s dinner to him in the study.

“Master Damian does not approve of my cooking.”

“The young master is vegetarian.”

“Today I was told that I ran the manor adequately considering I am the only servant.” 

“The guest room is much too small and surely we have a room with a better view and lighting.”

There were all pretty mundane, but it gave Bruce little insights on what Damian was like. Sure, he could’ve gotten all of the information by himself, but he was still at a loss about what he wanted to do with Damian.

It didn’t help that he got daily texts from Dick asking him how the day had been. The young man was nagging at Bruce to talk to Damian.

To find that common ground.

He hadn’t actually expected to find it one afternoon when he heard the piano in the music room. Bruce was pretty sure that it could only be one person.

Sure enough, when he looked inside he saw Damian sitting on the bench. His shoulders were slouched as he used his pointer finger to play one key at a time.

“I know you’re there,” Damian said, not even looking at Bruce to further acknowledge his presence.

Bruce held back a sigh and stepped inside. “This door was closed.”

“It was.” Damian didn’t sugar coat the fact that he’d been sneaking around the manor. Granted, it’s what Bruce would’ve done as well. He’d have wanted to explore his new surroundings too. “I figured that your piano had to be somewhere.”

“Why would you figure that?” He stayed by the door, not making a move to approach Damian yet.

The boy looked over his shoulder, his green eyes like his mother’s, but at the same time completely different. “You’re a pianist. Mother told me. She even allowed me to view some of your performances.”

Bruce wondered if Damian had seen recordings or if he and Talia had actually been in the audience before. He’d mostly drifted away from the spotlight, but when Bruce was asked to play for an event, he’d sometimes say yes. It was definitely possible that Damian could have seen him play live.

“Other than that, there was not much. A sheet of music here and there, and a reference to your studio, but nothing more.” Damian’s hand fell still. “I asked my mother for lessons and I was trained by some of the best teachers in the world.”

There was something unsaid there, that much was obvious. Bruce moved in closer. “But?”

Damian ducked his head down and looked away from him. “But it was not the same.”

It hit him right there. It was like all those times that Dick had slapped him in the face with sheet music when he zoned out or did something to gain Dick’s ire. Bruce walked over and sat down at the end of the bench. “But it wasn’t the same as what, Damian?”

Damian’s jaw clenched and he glared down at the ivory keys. “They were all…good teachers.”

Bruce stayed quiet. He wasn’t going to say what Damian was thinking. He was going to let the boy vocalise his wishes by himself.

“They were not the teacher that I wanted,” Damian eventually gritted out.

He was going to have to give Dick something. Maybe a new piece for his flute. Maybe a weeklong trip to the Bahamas. Either way, Dick was going to be pleased with himself.

“I suppose that I have room for another student,” Bruce said slowly. “However…” He waited until Damian looked up at him with wide eyes. The boy was finally looking his age. “You are not my only student. You understand that, right?”

“You do not need other students,” Damian said.

“You’re right. I don’t need them, but I want to teach them. Just like I’m going to teach you.” Damian’s jaw relaxed ever so slightly. Bruce was sure that it would take a while before Damian would finally realize that the others weren’t competition. Maybe that’s what all of this was. Just a cry for attention.

Bruce could imagine that Damian hadn’t spent a lot of time with Talia growing up. Now was his chance to be with one of his parents. Of course he wanted to monopolize him. Bruce was going to have to tread on some thin ice to find a good compromise between all of them.

Damian might be his son, but Bruce had a duty to the others as well. To Dick, Tim, Stephanie, and Cass.

“How about you show me what you know,” Bruce said.

“Yes, father.” Damian placed his hands back on the keys.

No, that sounded too much like a command. “I’d like you to show me your favorite piece.”

“My favorite piece?”

“I’m sure that you have one.” Even if Damian’s training might have been strict, there was no way that he couldn’t have a preferred piece.

“I suppose I do have one that I play more often than the others.” Damian hazarded.

That was good enough for now. Maybe someday soon Bruce would be able to get more out of Damian, but this was the first real conversation that they’d had together. He was going to have to be patient. Much like he’d been with Jason. Damian needed to have time to come out of his shell. If Bruce pushed too much, Damian would just push right back.

“That’s good. Please play it,” Bruce said. This was just step one in a long process.  
  


* * *

 

It was entirely different and foreign for Bruce to teach Damian. Not only because Damian picked everything up even quicker than Bruce did when he was younger, but because Damian was his son. There was something behind that fact that made everything different. He wasn’t just teaching a student, but he was teaching his son.

That combined with the fact that he’d only just found out that he was a father of a teenager came crashing down on Bruce. Their first few sessions were awkward. Damian clearly wanted to excel quickly and Bruce needed to sit down and think if he was going to do anything differently. Damian would play a piece and when he asked how he did, all Bruce replied with was a nod, sometimes a mumble here and there as well.

In the end, Bruce decided that they needed to change the setting in which they were practicing. At home it was harder to concentrate for Bruce. It was his space and had been his own space for most of his life. To have a teenaged boy who was his son suddenly in that space set everything on a tilt.

He moved their lessons over to the studio instead. At first Damian strongly opposed it – because why would they travel to the other side of Gotham to have lessons when they could do it at home – but he grew accustomed to it as well.

Bruce asked all of his other students to not show up unannounced during his time with Damian. Damian needed the attention and he’d already proven that getting along with the others wasn’t something that he was interested in.

Instead, Bruce followed Dick’s advice. He needed to form a bond with Damian before they could get anywhere else. Damian, who’d only grown up with stories about Bruce and grown up in such a strict environment.

Sometimes Bruce watched Damian’s fingers move over the keys and wondered what his hands had done. There were scars and callouses, but nothing that stopped Damian from playing. Bruce didn’t know if he even wanted to find out exactly what Damian’s upbringing had consisted of.

Damian was rough around the edges. He always had a retort to anything said against him and his defensive walls came up with practically every occasion. When they started going to the studio for lessons, Damian always looked around, as if he was looking for the other students to show up, but they wouldn’t. Not until Bruce said that it was good to come by again.

He actually needed to make a schedule and send it out, something he hadn’t done in years. After Tim became his student and Stephanie and Cassandra followed, the studio had become a space where they could come and go as they pleased.

Now Bruce had to set up appointments and make time to see where he was going to be at any given moment. He used to spend most of his time at the studio, knowing that at least one of his students would show up for the day, but now the only time that he was really there was for lessons.

Damian brought a bit more structure back into Bruce’s life, be it intentional or not. Bruce found that he actually quite enjoyed it. While being at the studio was still his favorite thing to do, it was a brush of fresh air to have that structure come back.

After a few weeks Bruce even planned a meet up with Dick. Out of all of his students, Dick knew about Damian and where he’d come from. Bruce was also slightly embarrassed about that fact. For a grown man like himself to be leaning on his student, who was still trying to find his feet as a young adult in the world. But Dick was reliable and always willing to help, so Bruce knew that there wouldn’t be any problems from his side.

It was Damian that Bruce was most concerned about. While the weeks together with his son had definitely helped them grow closer, there was still a distance between them. A tentativeness that kept them from connecting fully.

Bruce felt that part of that was that Damian wasn’t in his circle of students. He’d gotten so used to them being all together that it just felt wrong for there to be any sort of separation.

If he was going to get Damian to accept that Bruce had other students, then Dick was the best place to start.

“I do not see the necessity of this, father.” Damian had his arms crossed over his chest.

Bruce tried to keep himself calm and collected. If he showed how nervous he was, it would only rub off of Damian and make him irritable. “Dick is one of my students. He’s important to me.”

Damian clicked his tongue and looked off to the side. “Am I not important to you?”

This is what Bruce was afraid of. “Of course you are. You’re important to me and all of my students are important to me as well.” He hesitated. It was hard to put himself into Damian’s shoes and try to figure out how he’d react to things. “This isn’t a competition of who I like better.”

Maybe Damian did see it that way. Having a father that didn’t know you existed and then suddenly coming into his life had to be hard. For all that Damian acted mature, in the end, he was just a kid.

“Hey Bruce.” Dick waved when he walked over to them.

Bruce smiled, relieved that Dick arrived. “Good afternoon, Dick.”

“Hello Damian. It’s good to properly meet you.” Dick held out his hand in greeting.

For a second Bruce thought that Damian was going to snarl at Dick. One of the corners of his mouth pulled up like he was preparing himself for it, but it quickly smoothed out. Damian reached out and shook Dick’s hand. “Richard.”

“You can call me Dick. Everyone does,” Dick said.

Damian clicked his tongue again, something that he did very often Bruce had discovered. “I refuse to refer to you by such a vulgar derivative of your name.”

Dick looked over and Bruce just shrugged. “It doesn’t just mean penis, you know.”

“Irrelevant.” Damian pulled his hand away and stuck it into his pocket. “Shall we continue?” He asked.

In the long run, their first meeting wasn’t as bad as Bruce had feared. Damian, while rigid, appeared to watch Dick closely a lot. Almost as if Dick was some kind of mythical creature that he’d never seen before and was studying him.

Bruce mostly let them interact amongst themselves. The whole point behind this meeting was for them to get to know each other.

It took a few meetings before Dick stopped being cautious and truly coming out of his shell. Damian had a rough time adjusting to it, but soon he just went along with it. Bruce knew that his plan had been a success when one day Damian announced to him that Dick was coming to pick Damian up to go to one of the exhibitions in the museum.

From there, Bruce introduced Damian to Cassandra. Out of all of his students, she was the most level headed, so he didn’t expect much of an issue between the two of them.

He decided to have them meet at the studio. Bruce first had his lesson with Damian and scheduled Cassandra to come in straight away. He knew that she liked being early, so she was already sitting in the foyer when he came out with Damian, who was going to be picked up by Alfred.

Damian came to a stop in front of Bruce as soon as he noticed Cassandra.

For a moment they were both quiet, just staring at each other. Damian was the first to break eye contact. “-Tt. So this is where you are, Cain.”

Cassandra didn’t say anything. She just smiled at Damian, getting up and tapping him on the shoulder with one of her drums sticks. “No tell.”

Damian huffed under his breath and walked over to the door of the studio, peering out to see if Alfred had arrived yet.

“You know each other?” Bruce was always curious about Cassandra’s past, but he’d never asked about it. He didn’t think that he really needed to unless she wanted to talk about it. If Damian knew about her that meant that they had similar ties.

“No. Come, we play.” Cassandra tapped him as well before walked by him to go into the room where the drums were set up.

Why did everyone around him like to be so confusing? Sometimes it really annoyed the hell out of him. Bruce supposed that’s what students were for though.

After Cassandra he made the decision to have Damian formally meet Tim and Stephanie together with Dick as a buffer. Bruce sent them off in the hopes that Damian didn’t feel the need to posture because his father was around. Maybe his presence wouldn’t set off Damian’s negative feelings towards any of them, Tim in particular.

Bruce knew when Damian got home because the front door slammed shut, followed shortly by a room down the hall slamming shut as well. Evidently he’d been wrong. He was still learning.

Dick came into his study with a sheepish look. “I don’t think you can put them in the same room and make them play a piece together like you did for Jason and I.”

“What happened?” Bruce asked.

“I guess Damian tried? But you know Tim. He’s too snarky for his own good, plus Damian didn’t exactly leave a great impression,” Dick said.

So Bruce was left with the dilemma of what to do about Tim and Damian. Why they butted heads so much was beyond him. Sure, their initial meeting had gone poorly, but Bruce had hoped that Damian would’ve calmed down a little. Tim as well. While Bruce understood why Tim still seemed to hold a grudge, he’s expected him to show Damian that he hadn’t gotten to him. Then again, perhaps that was more reminiscent of Tim before. The Tim who was always looking to please no matter the cost.

On the one hand it was good that Tim had grown more confident in himself, but on the other hand, his stubbornness was proving to just be another headache for Bruce.

He knew that he couldn’t blame Tim or Damian though. It was an unfortunate happenstance that things had gone the way they had. If anything, Bruce could blame Talia. He had no doubt that she’d planned her arrival with Damian strategically.

In the end Bruce knew that he couldn’t just leave Tim and Damian with animosity of any sort between them. Not only was it a strain on him, but it was a strain on the others as well. Bruce didn’t want to force them together and make them like each other, because that would just make things worse, but he was kind of at a loss on how to make things work.

He chose to make sure that they saw each other and didn’t have to interact with each other. Perhaps they couldn’t get along, but Bruce hoped that they would at least try when the others were around.

Dick proved to be the best distraction. He easily moved between Tim and Damian and ignored the looks and the biting remarks and everything.

To think that Bruce almost hadn’t taken him on as a student. He had so much to thank Dick for. It was really quite remarkable how far they’d come along.

“If we don’t agree on a movie, we’re just going to watch a Disney movie. Everyone loves Disney,” Dick said.

All of his students were cluttered around the television, browsing through the movies that were available for streaming. Bruce had done get togethers at the manor like this before, but it had been a while. It was the perfect setting. Junk food, movies, and a lot of people hanging around. There was little that could go wrong. He just had to make sure that there was appropriate distance between the two warring parties.

“If we’re watching Disney, I vote Atlantis!” Stephanie called out.

Dick went through the list. “It isn’t on here.”

Stephanie groaned and flopped over Cassandra’s lap. Cassandra just reached out to pet Stephanie’s hair as she whined and moaned. “It’s so underappreciated!”

“Disney renaissance is the best period. Pick a movie from that,” Tim said, not even looking away from his computer screen. The live tracker for their pizza open. From the looks of the bar, it wouldn’t be long before it arrived.

Bruce rubbed his forehead. First there had been a long discussion and commotion over pizza and now there was another tirade about which movie they were going to watch. “Just select the Disney movies and play the first one you see.”

Everyone turned on him them. Dick was chastising him, Stephanie told him that he was blasphemous, and Cassandra looked at him in disappointment. At least they were all teaming up against him.

“What about this one?” Damian took the remote from Dick and moved the cursor over to another movie. He’d been subdued for most of the night, not taking part of the decision of which pizza to order or making a fuss about where he wanted to sit. “It has cats.”

“The Aristocats is good.”

“I haven’t seen that one in forever!”

“I do not know this one.”

Dick reached out to ruffle Damian’s hair, but the teenager ducked away and batted Dick’s hand off with the remote. “Good choice, Dami.”

The doorbell rang and Tim ran towards the front door. Bruce was pretty sure that he hadn’t eaten anything. He usually wasn’t so excited for food. He got up so he could pay the delivery man. “Get the plates ready,” he told the others before he went to the door.

Tim already opened the door and was taking the pizzas from the delivery man, all five boxes. “I’ll go put these on the table.”

“Be careful, Tim!” Bruce called after him as he grabbed his card to pay.

By the time Bruce got back, the boxes were already open and everyone was taking their favorites. Damian lingered on the side, looking down at the various choices. He pointed at the box that only Tim had grabbed something from. “What’s this?”

“It’s Hawaiian pizza, don’t take it,” Stephanie said.

Damian frowned. “Why not?”

“Try it,” Tim said. He grabbed a piece and put it on Damian’s plate. “She’s just wrong.”

Damian sat back down and nibbled on the pizza, keeping his head down as everyone looked at him. He licked his lip after taking his first few bites. “I do not see why there is such derision towards this pizza.”

“He likes it.” Tim grinned.

“Heathen!” Stephanie cried out. “You’re both heathens! Bruce! Tim corrupted your baby boy!”

Bruce grabbed a breadstick for himself and shrugged. Even though he wasn’t a fan of Hawaiian pizza, he didn’t really care if someone liked it or not.

Stephanie kept moaning and whining until Tim whacked her with a pillow. “Shut up! The movie is starting.”

“Yes, Stephanie. Desist. I wish to watch the movie,” Damian said.

Bruce hid his smile by eating a slice of people. Finally, Damian and Tim were on the same line about something. It was a start and that’s all that Bruce could ask for.  
  


* * *

 

After the tentative truce between Tim and Damian over pizza of all things, Bruce became bolder. He still scheduled separate lessons for each of his students, but now he told them that they could join in on other lessons if they so wished, as long as they told him beforehand.

It was a breath of fresh air to have several of them over again.

Surprisingly, it was Cassandra who attended a lesson with Damian for the first time. She didn’t do much else but sit in the corner and watch Damian and Bruce, but she was present. Damian hadn’t even voiced a protest either.

After that it was like the floodgates had opened. Bruce assumed that Cassandra had spoken with the others and soon they were all coming in during Damian’s lessons. Even Tim, who was often dragged along by someone else.

The most momentous development came with Damian asking if he could join in on one of Tim and Stephanie’s sessions.

When Bruce had asked Damian about it, the boy simply crossed his arms over his chest and explained that the cello and the guitar were two instruments that were able to accompany the piano best, so he wanted to assess their capabilities. For Bruce it was like the heavens opened.

That didn’t mean that Damian and Tim stopped butting heads – because they butted heads a lot – but it got to the point where it was more arguing than threatening bodily harm. Bruce thought that was the most important part.

Soon everyone was coming to the studio at the same time again. Damian would always act huffy at the start, but by the end of the day Bruce caught him hiding smiles. They’d come far in a short time. Bruce was finally getting used to being a father and Damian was getting used to being around others and accepting them for who they were.

Big leaps forward, in Bruce’s mind.

They’d just finished listening to Stephanie play her guitar when Damian jumped out of his chair. “Stephanie! I would like for you and I to play a duet!”

Everyone froze to the point that Bruce was pretty sure they were holding their breath. Stephanie was staring at Damian with wide eyes, but she quickly smiled at him. “You wanna play with little old me?”

“Yes.” Damian nodded.

Stephanie tapped her fingers against the body of her guitar. “I mean, I’m not opposed to it. Except Tim’s my partner in crime. You gotta ask him for permission.”

Red trailed up the back of Damian’s neck as he turned to look at Tim. “Timothy.”

“Damian,” Tim replied.

Bruce could see the way that Damian was gritting his teeth before he spoke up again. “I’d like to practice a duet with Stephanie.”

Tim looked between Stephanie and Damian. “Steph and I are working on a performance piece right now.”

“Then the three of us will play,” Damian said.

Tim frowned. “You can’t just decide that for all of us.”

Damian opened his mouth to reply, but he stopped before anything came out. “I apologize.” His shoulders dropped and he sat back down.

With a glare, Stephanie reached over to stomp Tim’s arm. They made faces at each other for a few seconds before Tim sighed. “I guess playing a piece with a cello, guitar and piano can be interesting.”

“I do not want your pity,” Damian said.

“It’s not. I think we can have a lot of fun playing together.” Stephanie smiled at Damian.

Bruce wondered where why Damian decided to asked Stephanie to play with him until later where he caught Dick patting Damian on the back and telling him that he’d done a good job. There was a pang in his heart when Bruce realised that Damian confided in Dick rather than him, but while he was Damian’s father, it wasn’t like he’d been it for long.

He was glad that Damian found a confidant in Dick.

Another thing that surprised him was when Damian announced that he was going out to meet Tim and Stephanie for practice. Somehow, Bruce assumed that he would be around during their sessions, but he wasn’t going to complain that they were going to work together. He knew from experience that if they needed help that they would come to him.

Bruce offered the studio as a space to practice at, but they declined. It reminded Bruce of the time when Dick became more independent. Except he’d been older than most of them by the time he went out by himself. Bruce supposed that it was different, because they were writing a piece together. Bruce had no doubt that with Tim’s talent, Stephanie’s creativity, and Damian’s smarts, they would be able to pull it off.


	5. Reunions

“Remind me again why you’re here?” Bruce asked Dick. It was a miserable day. It was cold and pouring outside. The only reason why Bruce left the house was because he’d promised Cassandra that they would play a new song. She was the one that he saw least, so Bruce always made sure that he was available no matter what.

“I promised Cass that I’d come by,” Dick said. He was wearing an old hoodie and sweatpants.

“You look like you were ready for a day in.”

Dick scratched the back of his neck. “I might’ve forgotten the day?”

“Foolish,” Cass said, punctuating her point with a tap on her cymbal.

“I’m here! That’s what counts!” Dick protested.

It was nice of Dick to come over even though it was a bad day. He kept sniffling as well, like he was on the edge of getting a cold. Bruce just about scolded him for coming in without an umbrella and a wet head, but Dick was an adult now. He should be able to do things like that for himself. That was something typically Dick though. Feeling under the weather and still coming. Bruce though that Dick was too self-sacrificing for his own good.

Cassandra went through her warmups with a frown, her eyes constantly going over to Dick as he slouched further and further into his chair. Bruce wasn’t the only one to see how ragged Dick looked. Cassandra was a master at reading body language.

“You turn the heat up,” she told Bruce.

Bruce got up. “I’ll do that and gets some drinks.” He held up a hand to keep Dick from following behind him. The young man needed to stay seated.

Bruce texted Tim when he went to his office to change the temperature on the thermostat. Hopefully he’d catch Tim before he left, because he was going to drop Damian off at the studio after another practice session. Bruce sent a message asking Tim to bring some cold medicine, adding in that it was for Dick. That would be enough explanation for Tim, so he wouldn’t have to answer any questions.

He got a text back with a small picture of a thumbs up. Stephanie kept calling Bruce to refer to them as emojis, but he’d never do that.

There was a gentle strum and Bruce looked at his phone again, thinking that he’d gotten another notification, but there was nothing on the screen. He frowned when he heard the strum again. Now that he’d heard it, Bruce realized that he was hearing the harp in the foyer.

That was strange. He was pretty sure that Dick and Cassandra wouldn’t be in the foyer and there was no reason for anyone to walk into the studio. The sign at the front was turned to closed, Bruce had flipped it over himself. The front door was still open, because he was expecting Tim and Damian later, but other than that he didn’t know why anyone would be here; unless they were hiding from the rain.

Bruce walked over the foyer, hearing the strumming once again. He frowned. There was a sign on the harp saying that it was not to be touched. Who would just walk in and blatantly ignore the sign?

The person standing by the harp was a man with broad shoulders. He was wearing a leather jacket that was dripping all over the floor and there was a case and an umbrella by his feet.

“What are you doing here?” Bruce snapped and the man’s fingers stilled over the strings of the harp. “We’re closed.”

“Sorry ‘bout that.” The man turned and Bruce saw that he wasn’t a man at all. He was a young man, probably no older than twenty at most.

Bruce narrowed his eyes as he looked at the young man. There was something familiar about him, but Bruce couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. “Well?” His questions hadn’t been answered.

One side of the young man’s mouth quirked up and the corners of his eyes crinkled. Bruce’s breath caught in his throat. “Am I too late for my next lesson?” He asked.

“Oh my god.” Bruce took a step to the side and placed a hand on one of the chairs next to him. He was starting to feel light headed. “Jason?”

“Hey, B,” Jason said.

Jason looked almost nothing like he had when he’d left. He was tall, probably close to Bruce’s height now, and he was built large as well, with his broad shoulders. There was stubble on his face and his hair was longer, messy, but not enough to quite hide his curls.

Bruce pushed away from the chair, striding forward and wrapping his arms around Jason without a moment of hesitation. God, Jason was so tall. That didn’t stop him from leaning in close and ducking his head down onto Bruce’s chest like he had when he was younger. For a moment Bruce struggled to breathe as he tried to hold back his emotions.

“Jay. I can’t believe it. It’s you, Jay,” Bruce babbled.

Jason chuckled, his arms tightening around Bruce’s middle. “Yeah, old man. It’s me.”

He took a step back, placing his hands on Jason’s shoulders so he could look at the young man up close. Jason looked good. There were bags under his eyes and his clothes were ragged, but that wasn’t really anything new. “I can’t believe it.”

“Sorry it took me so long to get back.” Jason’s eyes trailed over to the harp. “I just…couldn’t come back, y’know?”

“I know.” Bruce of all people knew how Jason must’ve felt. “My god, look at you.”

“Bruce? I thought you were getting drinks?” Dick came around the corner. The frown on his face deepened when he saw Bruce and Jason.

“Hey, Dickface,” Jason said.

Dick’s mouth fell open and he stared at Jason. “ _Jason?_ ”

“Yup.”

With a big grin and a shout, Dick pitched himself forward. Bruce was only just able to step aside before Dick literally jumped on Jason. Luckily, Jason’s size wasn’t just how he’d grown, because he caught Dick without falling over.

Bruce stepped aside and smiled as he watched the two of them. Now that he was looking at Jason, it was really easy to see glimpses of the boy he’d last seen years ago. The way his lips pulled back at Dick’s antics, but his eyes still shone with repressed happiness.

“Oh my god. Oh my god!” Dick let himself fall back, Jason easily letting him go. “You’re taller than me.”

“I told you I would be.” Jason grinned.

The smell of coffee caught Bruce’s nose and he turned to see Cassandra standing by the hallway with a tray that had three mugs on it. “A guest?”

“An old friend,” Bruce said, walking over to her. “Cass, this is Jason. He’s a former student of mine.”

Cassandra looked Jason over, her eyes as critical as ever. They moved over to Dick and then at the case on the ground. “What’s that?”

“Oh. My violin. Not as good as the one Bruce gave me, of course,” Jason explained.

“Hot drinks! Sit!” Dick grabbed Jason’s arm and tugged him towards the chairs.

Now that he had a moment, Bruce grabbed Jason’s violin case and his umbrella. He set it in the corner by the coat rack and brought the case over to where Dick had situated them. He then went to the back to make tea for Jason. Bruce didn’t know what Jason drank now, but he knew what Jason used to drink.

By the time he got back, all three of them were sitting together, having moved the chairs into a more comfortable position for a conversation. Dick and Cassandra were both looking at Jason as he spoke, moving his hands around. Bruce set the mug on the small table they’d pulled up and Jason immediately locked onto it, reaching out to grab the mug. “Rooibos?”

“Yes.” Alfred had gotten Jason hooked on the tea when he was younger.

Jason held the mug up to his nose and took a deep breath, exhaling with a smile.

“Jason was just telling us what he’s been up to,” Dick said.

Bruce sat down, grabbing his coffee from the table. He was interested to hear as well.

They all listened to Jason as he spoke, giving a short version of what had happened after his mother had died. He’d been shuffled into social services and sent to live with a foster family outside of Gotham, where he’d run away. Not wanting to return to Gotham because it meant going to a city that didn’t have his mother anymore, Jason instead wandered around until he met another boy, named Roy, who was a few years older than him and they stuck together for years.

Jason was just starting to tell them about the odds job that he’d worked so he could save up to travel to Europe when the front door opened.

“Dick better really be sick! We had to take a detour to get this cold medicine for him,” Tim complained as he shook himself out, droplets of water going everywhere.

“Timmy! Dami!” Dick piped up.

Damian walked over, a scowl on his face and a drop of water on the end of his nose. “He does not look sick to me.” It was then that Damian noticed Jason sitting next to Bruce. “Who is this, father?”

“Father?” Jason asked. “I wasn’t gone that long, right?”

“No. This is my son, Damian. I was…unaware of his existence for the first decade of his life,” Bruce said.

Dick jumped up, walking over to Tim and grabbing the bag from him to see what he’d gotten. Damian lost interest in Jason and went over to them, pulling the bag away from Dick and deftly scolding him.

“Things got busy while I was gone,” Jason said, looking at all of them as they clustered together. Even Cassandra had gotten up to join the others.

“It did.” Bruce wasn’t ready to tell Jason how lost he’d been without him.

Jason set his mug down. “I called once, y’know? But you sounded busy, so I hung up on you.”

It was quite possible that he’d gotten a call like that. Bruce couldn’t even remember if he’d ever gotten one and he immediately felt guilty. “I looked for you.”

“Yeah?” Jason’s voice wavered.

“I did. I think I was awake for five days before Alfred locked me in my room,” Bruce said.

Jason chuckled and he shook his head. “Yeah, sounds like Alfie.” Bruce reached over and patted Jason’s hand. Jason met his eyes and smiled at him. “You got old without me, B.”

“You grew up without me, Jay,” Bruce replied.

“I’m back now and ain’t going nowhere.”

“I know.”  
  


* * *

 

“Entschuldigung,” Bruce said as he pulled up to the studio.

“Alles ist gut, Bruce. No worries.” Verena took her seatbelt off and opened the door before he could get out and open it for her.

It was the first time in years that Verena had made the trip from Austria to Gotham, since her health had taken a decline, but she was getting better and had gotten permission from her doctor to travel. So when Bruce told her that all of his students were working together on one big performance they wanted to put on, she’d insisted on flying out.

Bruce held out his arm and Verena slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow.

The original plan had been for Bruce to pick Verena up from the airport and take her to the manor, but when she heard that the students would be practicing at the studio for the day before they came over to see her, she put her foot down and said that she wanted to see them.

Of course, Bruce wasn’t about to tell her no.

He just hoped that the studio was in fit shape and that there weren’t any fires. Because Bruce had been driving, he hadn’t been able to give any of the students a heads up that he was coming by with Verena instead of their predetermined plans.

He pushed the door open and winced when a shout rang through the room.

“You’re doing it wrong!”

“Really? Cause it sounds right to me.”

Bruce bit back a sigh, leading Verena inside. “Hello!” He called out.

Stephanie was the first to come out, her hair pulled back in a messy bun. Her eyes widened at the sight of them. “Bruce and Verena!”

“Wait what?”

There was the sound of multiple footsteps and everyone’s heads popped out from behind the door.

Verena chuckled and waved her hand. “Hello.”

Jason was the first to step out and properly greet them. “Guten tag, Verena. Wie geht es Ihnen?”

“Sehr gut, und du?” She asked.

“Danke, gut,” Jason said.

Tim’s eyes narrowed. “Jason speaks German?”

“Yeah, he’s fluent in like, six language or something,” Dick said.

Bruce cleared his throat and they all focused again, moving out of the room to greet Verena. Once they were finished Bruce led her over to the chair so she could sit down. Cassandra came out with a cup of tea. She set it down along with some milk and sugar before she went back over to the others.

As per usual, they all got distracted and started muttering amongst themselves. Maybe Bruce had come at a bad time. His students seemed to be deep in their conversation about what they were planning.

He was excited to find out what they came up with, as he’d been outside of most of the process. They wanted to keep it a secret from him so he could see what they’d done.

Bruce didn’t like it, but Alfred just told him to be patient. It was just that Bruce was so used to helping all of them.

Verena reached over and patted Bruce’s cheek. “You are happy,” she said.

“Yes, I am.” Bruce smiled. It was hard not to be with so many bright people around him.

“Sehr schön. A big family,” Verena said.

Bruce honestly never really thought of it that way, but Verena was right. Bruce’s life revolved around each and every one of his students. They’d integrated into his life so easily and now it was hard to think about what it’d be like without them.

There was something deeply satisfying about sitting with Verena in his own music studio surrounded by all of his students.

It did feel something like a family. 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Join me on [Tumblr](http://flashthroughlight.tumblr.com/).


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